Sources: Jonathan Kuminga demanding trade away from Warriors - ESPN

SAN FRANCISCO — On the first day he became eligible to be moved, fifth-year forward Jonathan Kuminga demanded a trade away from the Golden State Warriors, league sources told ESPN.

Kuminga could not be traded until Thursday, according to the terms of the contract he signed this summer. The trade deadline is Feb. 5.

Kuminga's roller-coaster tenure with the Warriors is perhaps at its lowest point. He started the first 12 games of the season — with coach Steve Kerr calling him a secure starter following a hot start — but a patch of struggles led to a demotion, landing poorly with the 23-year-old.

Kuminga hasn't seen the floor in the Warriors' past 13 games. Kerr buried him at the bottom of his deep rotation, and Kuminga ruled himself out with back soreness an hour before a game on Jan. 2 against the Thunder, when Kerr said he planned to use him while the starters rested.

Team sources said that essentially every major figure on the ground level of the operation — most notably Kuminga, Kerr and the veterans watching a $22.5 million player sit on the bench while the team is stuck in a «mediocre» state, as Jimmy Butler called it — agree that the best resolution is to trade Kuminga prior to the deadline.

«I'm disappointed for him that things didn't continue to go the way they did the first couple of weeks,» Kerr said recently.

The Warriors spent the entire summer in contentious contract negotiations with Kuminga, using a challenging restricted free agency market to get him back on a two-year, $46.8 million contract with a team option on the second season. That structure, which Kuminga told those around him he felt forced into signing, further soured his relationship with management, league sources said, but was done to deliver