After overcoming injury, Jonathan Kuminga finally takes the court for the Atlanta Hawks. Expect exciting minutes and a potential starting role as he debuts against the Wizards.
The Atlanta Hawks announced about an hour before the team's game against the Washington Wizards that forward Jonathan Kuminga has been upgraded to "available" and will play for the first time in a Hawks uniform.
This is according to the team's official injury report, which features no other Hawks players:
Kuminga has been dealing with a left knee bone bruise that stemmed before Atlanta traded for Kuminga before the NBA trade deadline. The original reports said he would debut with the team right out of the All-Star break, but Kuminga hit a setback that caused him to miss another week.
Now, he finally makes his much-anticipated debut with the Hawks. It will be very interesting to see how Atlanta utilizes Kuminga, and how he plays alongside Jalen Johnson.
With the recent starting lineup change (CJ McCollum in favor of Zaccharie Risacher), Kuminga might be in line to earn a starting spot if he impresses on the court.
Jonathan Kuminga has only played 20 games this season, all with the Golden State Warriors, before Golden State traded him due to some friction between him and the organization.
In those 20 games this season, Kuminga is averaging 12.1 points on 45% shooting. There's no sugarcoating it; this Hawks team is held back at times due to a lack of size, and that's one of the bright spots that Kuminga is thought to be able to bring in, but he'll finally grace the court for the Hawks, so there will be no shortage of thoughts and opinions from the masses on how he performs.
As for the Hawks, they sit at 28-31, but have a pair of games against the Wizards this week. On Tuesday, the Hawks are 13.5-point favorites, which is by far the most points they've been favored to win by this season.
Atlanta will square off with Washington again on Thursday, so a good chance here for the Hawks to double up and get to 30-31.