Agent - Kuminga wants player option, would take qualifying offer - ESPN

Jonathan Kuminga's agent, Aaron Turner, told ESPN that Kuminga is prepared to take the $7.9 million qualifying offer unless the Golden State Warriors improve their current offers.

«There's a lot of upside,» Turner said in an interview with the Hoop Collective podcast. «He wants to pick where he wants to go. So the QO is real for sure.»

The Warriors have presented Kuminga with three separate frameworks, as ESPN reported earlier this week. The most lucrative is a three-year, $75.2 million deal with a team option on the third season. It guarantees Kuminga $48.3 million in the first two seasons.

He is also being offered a two-year, $45 million deal with a team option on the second season and a three-year, $54 million deal without options. Kuminga, to this point of the negotiations, has declined everything put in front of him. He is requesting the Warriors turn the team option into a player option and he will sign it.

The Warriors have declined to put a player option in any offer to Kuminga.

«If (the Warriors) want to win now, if you want a guy that's happy and treated fairly who is a big part of this team, we believe, moving forward, you give him the player option,» Turner said. «You do lose a little of that trade value (giving that up). But if it's about the here and now, you give him that. You don't get a perfect deal, but you get a pretty good deal and he gets to feel respected about what he gets and we all move on and worry about winning, helping Steph (Curry).»

The Warriors are the only NBA team this summer who have not signed a free agent. Less than two weeks until training camp, they only have nine players on their roster. The expectation is they will sign veterans Al Horford, De'Anthony Melton and Gary Payton II once