[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"header-nav":3,"footer-nav":29,"article-lakers-kuminga-20-million-gamble-lebron-vacuum":82,"category-counts-nav":95,"related-lakers-kuminga-20-million-gamble-lebron-vacuum":105},[4,8,11,14,17,20,23,26],{"label":5,"to":6,"exact":7},"Home","\u002F",true,{"label":9,"to":10},"World Cup","\u002Fworldcup",{"label":12,"to":13},"Standings","\u002Fstandings",{"label":15,"to":16},"Football","\u002Fcategory\u002Ffootball",{"label":18,"to":19},"Basketball","\u002Fcategory\u002Fbasketball",{"label":21,"to":22},"Tennis","\u002Fcategory\u002Ftennis",{"label":24,"to":25},"F1","\u002Fcategory\u002Ff1",{"label":27,"to":28},"Long Reads","\u002Fcategory\u002Flong-reads",{"brand":30,"columns":32,"tagline":80,"copyright":81},{"description":31},"In-depth sports journalism covering football, basketball, tennis, F1, and beyond. Daily analysis, long reads, and expert opinion.",[33,51,59],{"heading":34,"links":35},"Leagues",[36,39,42,45,48],{"label":37,"to":38},"Premier League","\u002Ftag\u002Fpremier-league",{"label":40,"to":41},"La Liga","\u002Ftag\u002Fla-liga",{"label":43,"to":44},"NBA","\u002Ftag\u002Fnba",{"label":46,"to":47},"Formula 1","\u002Ftag\u002Fformula-1",{"label":49,"to":50},"Champions League","\u002Ftag\u002Fchampions-league",{"heading":52,"links":53},"Content",[54,56,57],{"label":55,"to":16},"Analysis",{"label":27,"to":28},{"label":58,"to":16},"Data & Stats",{"heading":60,"links":61},"Company",[62,65,68,71,74,77],{"label":63,"to":64},"Terms of Service","\u002Fservice",{"label":66,"to":67},"Privacy Policy","\u002Fprivacy",{"label":69,"to":70},"Editorial Policy","\u002Feditorial",{"label":72,"to":73},"Contact Us","\u002Fcontact",{"label":75,"to":76},"About Us","\u002Fabout",{"label":78,"to":79},"Website Disclaimer","\u002Fdisclaimer","Built for the love of sport","© SportPulse. All rights reserved.",{"title":83,"slug":84,"category":85,"badge":86,"author":87,"excerpt":88,"date":89,"readTime":90,"image":91,"imageAlt":83,"tags":92,"body":93,"_path":94},"The Lakers' $20 Million Question and the Kuminga Stalemate","lakers-kuminga-20-million-gamble-lebron-vacuum","basketball","Offseason","Chloe Bennett","Los Angeles is betting Kuminga fills the LeBron void, but his camp plays the long game for a bigger payday.","2026-07-08 04:17:48","5 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fmedia.zenfs.com\u002Fen\u002Fsb_nation_articles_115\u002F0774076993e72fe3b78ef649d1d6a0dc",[43,86],"## The Empty Chair\n\nPicture the Los Angeles Lakers practice facility. The squeak of sneakers, the rhythmic thud of leather on hardwood, and in the corner, an empty chair where the greatest player of his generation once sat. LeBron James is gone, and with him goes a gravitational pull that defined an entire era of Lakers basketball.\n\nNow imagine a different player walking into that void. A young player, all raw arms and restless legs, looking for a place to land. That player is Jonathan Kuminga, and the Lakers are doing everything in their power to make him see Los Angeles as home.\n\nThe offer sits on the table: **two years, $20 million**.\n\nFor a franchise that once chased superstars with blank checks, this feels modest. Almost humble. But it also represents something else entirely about the Lakers' current reality and their vision for what comes next.\n\n## The Gamble\n\nThis is what the Lakers have become in a post-LeBron world: a team that hunts for value in the margins, that sees potential where others see inconsistency.\n\nKuminga is **22 years old**, a walking bundle of athletic possibility who has tantalized and frustrated in equal measure. Last season, split between the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks, he averaged **12.2 points and 5.6 rebounds** while shooting **33.3% from three-point range**. In 16 games with the Hawks specifically, he averaged **12.3 points on 47.6% field goal shooting and 34.6% from 3-point**, pulling in **5.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 0.9 steals** in **22.1 minutes** per game.\n\nThose numbers whisper potential rather than scream star. But the Lakers see something the stat sheet obscures.\n\nThey see a 6-foot-8 forward with a **7-foot wingspan** who can guard multiple positions, who flashed moments of genuine brilliance during the 2023-24 season when he averaged **16.1 points per game** for Golden State. They see a player who, freed from the structured ecosystem of the Warriors and the transient stop in Atlanta, might blossom with consistent minutes and the license to make mistakes.\n\nThe Lakers have remained in contact with Kuminga's agent, Aaron Turner. They have increased their original offer. They have, according to league insiders, even dangled something more precious than money: a potential starting spot.\n\n## The Arithmetic of Desire\n\nHere is where the story gets complicated.\n\nLast season, Kuminga earned upward of **$23 million**. The Lakers are offering **$10 million per year**. That is pay cut territory, and for a young player whose camp believes his best basketball lies ahead, accepting less than half your previous salary requires a particular kind of faith.\n\nFaith that the system will use you right. Faith that the opportunity will translate to production. Faith that one breakout season in Los Angeles, playing alongside Luka Doncic with shots suddenly available, could reset your market value entirely.\n\nThe Lakers know this. Their pitch is not really about the $20 million. It is about the platform.\n\nWith James gone, the Lakers offense lost its primary architect. Someone must take those shots. Someone must fill those minutes. Someone must become the third option that a competitive team desperately needs alongside Doncic and whatever else the roster becomes.\n\nKuminga, in theory, could be that someone.\n\n## The Waiting Game\n\nBut Kuminga remains available. Still looking. Still waiting.\n\nThis is the part of free agency that fans rarely see: the quiet weeks when nothing seems to happen, when agents and executives exchange phone calls and proposals and counterproposals, when a player works out alone in some gym while his future hangs in the balance.\n\nRob Pelinka, the Lakers' President of Basketball Operations, continues to sell his vision. According to ESPN's Anthony Slater, Pelinka has remained in touch with Kuminga's agent, Aaron Turner, subtly improving the Lakers' offer in recent days while reiterating Kuminga's importance to what the Lakers are building around Doncic—a likely starting role and what the opportunity could do for his career. The Lakers have even held a virtual meeting with Kuminga early in free agency, with Pelinka and head coach JJ Redick pitching him on a vision of being a high-minutes wing next to Doncic and Austin Reaves in a spacious on-court environment conducive to his skill set.\n\nThey have signaled seriousness not just through the offer itself but through the willingness to enhance it.\n\nYet the gap between what the Lakers can offer and what Kuminga's camp believes he deserves remains a chasm neither side has figured out how to bridge. Slater notes that Kuminga is still waiting for potentially improved deals, which could come as offseason dominoes continue to fall.\n\n> A breakout season from Kuminga could raise his value around the NBA.\n\nThat sentence is the entire bet compressed into fourteen words.\n\n## The Bigger Bet\n\nWhat the Lakers are really pursuing is not just a player. They are pursuing a restoration project—a chance to take a lottery-level talent whose career arc stalled in the Warriors' win-now culture and transplant him into a situation where growth is the primary expectation.\n\nGolden State was always an awkward fit for Kuminga. The Warriors' system demands instant processing, precision passing, and defensive discipline that takes years to internalize. Kuminga's instincts are more primal: drive, leap, finish, repeat. He was a Ferrari asked to navigate school zones.\n\nAtlanta was a layover, not a destination. Kuminga arrived there on Feb. 5 in a deal that sent him and Buddy Hield to the Hawks while Kristaps Porzingis went to Golden State. The Hawks declined his **$24.3 million team option** on June 29, making him an unrestricted free agent—but a return to Atlanta on a friendlier deal remains possible, though ESPN reports that \"a reunion isn't being actively discussed.\"\n\nLos Angeles offers something neither situation could: the combination of a genuine need for his specific skillset and the platform that comes with wearing purple and gold. The Lakers need wings. They need athleticism. They need someone who can absorb the minutes and shots that LeBron's departure left behind.\n\nIf Kuminga starts and produces, the $20 million becomes a preamble to something significantly larger. His camp knows this. The Lakers know this. The negotiation is really about how much risk each side is willing to absorb.\n\n## The Stalemate\n\nFor now, the offer stands. Two years. Twenty million dollars. A starting spot. The LeBron vacuum.\n\nKuminga waits.\n\nThe Lakers wait.\n\nAnd they are not the only ones at the table. The Cleveland Cavaliers have also emerged as a team interested in Kuminga's services—a LeBron-sized elephant in the room that complicates whatever Pelinka is trying to build. There's familiarity there, too: Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson coached Kuminga in his first three NBA seasons as an assistant under Steve Kerr with the Warriors. Though the Cavaliers' primary target remains LeBron James himself, their interest in Kuminga adds another layer to an already tangled pursuit.\n\nThe Sacramento Kings have also re-entered the picture. According to ESPN, the Kings—who were heavily involved in the Kuminga sweepstakes a year ago—checked back in with Kuminga to gauge his interest. A deal there would likely require a sign-and-trade, and Sacramento has been hesitant to discuss those plans.\n\nWith more suitors circling, Kuminga's patience may not be stubbornness so much as strategy.\n\nSomewhere in between, a deal waits to be made or to fall apart. Pelinka continues working the phones, exploring ways to free up cap space, searching for the number that turns maybe into yes.\n\nThis is modern NBA team-building: not the splashy pursuit of established stars but the patient cultivation of developmental bets. Not the chase for certainty but the embrace of calculated risk.\n\nThe Lakers are betting that Kuminga's best basketball is ahead of him. Kuminga's camp may be betting that someone else will pay more for the same conviction.\n\nIn a league where the gap between promise and production defines careers, the $20 million question lingers like a shot floating toward the rim, waiting to fall through or clank away.\n\nFor the Lakers, the post-LeBron era begins with a pursuit. Whether that pursuit ends with Kuminga in purple and gold or with the Lakers turning elsewhere will tell us something about both franchises and the player caught between them.\n\nThe empty chair is still there. Someone will eventually sit in it. Whether that someone is Jonathan Kuminga remains the question that hangs over this entire offseason.\n\nFor now, the gym stays quiet, the offer stays open, and both sides keep waiting for the other to blink first.\n\n> *Updated: 2026-07-09 — Added details on Cavaliers' Atkinson-Kuminga connection and Kings' renewed interest, Hawks' trade timeline and option decline, Kuminga's Atlanta stats, and Austin Reaves as part of Lakers' pitch.*\n*Update:*\n> 新文章重复报道湖人追求库明加的传闻，涉及相同的事实：库明加与湖人互有兴趣、双方已进行虚拟会面、湖人薪资空间有限需要创造空间、库明加仍在探索其他选项。唯一微小的新信息是库明加上赛季在老鹰队的具体数据（场均12.2分5.6篮板2.3助攻）。","\u002Farticles\u002Flakers-kuminga-20-million-gamble-lebron-vacuum",[96,85,97,98,99,100,101,102,103,104],"analysis","cricket","f1","football","general","golf","mma","long-reads","tennis",[106,119,130],{"id":107,"stem":107,"path":108,"title":109,"category":85,"badge":110,"badgeType":111,"author":87,"authorRole":112,"authorInitials":113,"date":114,"readTime":115,"image":116,"imageAlt":109,"tags":117,"excerpt":118},"caitlin-clark-political-football-adam-silver-wnba-debate","\u002Farticles\u002Fcaitlin-clark-political-football-adam-silver-wnba-debate","Caitlin Clark, The Political Football Silver Never Wanted","WNBA","category","SportPulse Contributor","CB","2026-07-18 01:51:00","7 min read","\u002Fimages\u002Farticles\u002Fcaitlin-clark-political-football-adam-silver-wnba-debate.webp","WNBA, NBA","Adam Silver calls the Caitlin Clark discourse a political football, saying the real fight isn't about officiating at all.",{"id":120,"stem":120,"path":121,"title":122,"category":85,"badge":43,"badgeType":111,"author":123,"authorRole":124,"authorInitials":125,"date":126,"readTime":90,"image":127,"imageAlt":122,"tags":128,"excerpt":129},"utah-summer-league-finale-jazz-hawks-underdog-bids","\u002Farticles\u002Futah-summer-league-finale-jazz-hawks-underdog-bids","Salt Lake Finale: Jazz Hunt Perfect Run, Flemings Sparks Hawks Upset Bid","Maya Rodriguez","NBA Correspondent","MR","2026-07-09 02:09:41","https:\u002F\u002Fimg.covers.com\u002Fbetting\u002Fsportsbooks\u002F336\u002Fkalshi.svg","NBA, NBA Summer League, Utah Summer League, Utah Jazz, Atlanta Hawks, Oklahoma City Thunder, Memphis Grizzlies","Utah Summer League closes with the Jazz chasing perfection and Kingston Flemings engineering an underdog Hawks upset on July 7.",{"id":131,"stem":131,"path":132,"title":133,"category":85,"badge":86,"badgeType":111,"author":134,"authorRole":112,"authorInitials":135,"date":136,"readTime":137,"image":138,"imageAlt":133,"tags":139,"excerpt":140},"heat-land-antetokounmpo-blockbuster-shake-up-east","\u002Farticles\u002Fheat-land-antetokounmpo-blockbuster-shake-up-east","Heat Land Antetokounmpo in Blockbuster That Reshapes the East","Elena Rossi","ER","2026-07-06 23:15:49","6 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fichef.bbci.co.uk\u002Face\u002Fstandard\u002F976\u002Fcpsprodpb\u002F5b62\u002Flive\u002F0c80d0f0-6f0e-11f1-93e4-574a66c90712.jpg","NBA, Eastern Conference, Milwaukee Bucks, Miami Heat","Giannis Antetokounmpo's move to Miami rewrites Eastern Conference power dynamics and forces a tactical recalibration from every contender."]