The Golden State Warriors seem to have made some of the higher basketball powers angry in recent days. Just three days after Jimmy Butler was ruled out for the season with a torn ACL, the Warriors continued to struggle to get back into rhythm, falling to the Dallas Mavericks in a difficult 123-115 loss on Thursday.

One main reason for the loss came from what would've been one of the most likely sources of positive play over the past month: Jonathan Kuminga. Due to Butler's injury, Kuminga has had to step back into the rotation, despite his trade demand still hanging over the team, and he's played extremely well. 

However, Kuminga suffered a leg injury on an extremely awkward leg plant while driving to the basket midway through the second quarter. Although it was initially reported not to be a serious injury, Kuminga left the game almost immediately and was ruled out at halftime, causing Warriors fans to worry if they had just witnessed another player go down with more than a day-to-day issue.

After the game, Steve Kerr addressed Kuminga's injury in his postgame press conference and lamented how it affected the Warriors on Thursday.

"I just talked to him, he said he's going to get an MRI (on Friday). It was both the knee and the ankle. We'll see how bad it is. Such a shame, he was playing great and that definitely hurt, as well, not having him available for the second half."

Playing great might even be an understatement in this case, as in just nine minutes on the court before his injury, Kuminga was a perfect 3-3 from the field and 4-4 from the free throw line for 10 points, and finished his game as a +18. That ended up being the fourth-most points scored by any Warrior and the second-best plus/minus, just behind De'Anthony Melton's +22.

If Kuminga's MRI comes back positive and he's able to return sooner rather than later, it remains to be seen how much his role will continue to expand. The sample size from his one full game against the Raptors is skewed, considering the blowout nature of that game, but he did play 21 minutes in that one and poured in an efficient 20 points.

In fact, in just his 30 minutes in the past two games, he's scored 30 points on extreme efficiency. He's been getting to the rim and seemingly not settling for many difficult jumpers like it looked like he was last year or earlier this year.

One of the issues with Kuminga was that his playstyle never really fit what the Warriors wanted to do. The motion offense centered around Steph Curry went against his best trait of attacking downhill with the ball in his hands, while the pick and roll offense that allowed Butler to control things and playmake seemed to leave Kuminga as a mere roll guy or spot-up player.

However, if Kuminga is healthy, it might be the move for Kerr to employ him in a similar role as Butler was occupying with that second unit, using his driving abilities to create shots for the rest of the second unit that thrives off of kickouts and attacking closeouts, but struggles a bit more with creating their own offense.

Of course, Kuminga's passing and court vision leave much to be desired when compared to Butler, but it's capable enough that this could be the best course of action moving forward if no trade were to occur.