[Slater] On Dec. 10, Kuminga knew management wanted to ding him for missing a team event, and alert him that someone around him was taking too much food from the family room. The gripes had become “petty”. Inside Kerr’s office, the meeting ended with Kerr slamming his white board in frustration.
Longer snippets from the Slater piece:
THE MOST TENSE flare-up in what team sources otherwise described as a relatively cordial cold war between Jonathan Kuminga and Steve Kerr came on the afternoon of Dec. 10.
Kuminga was prepared for the conversation. He knew management wanted to ding him for missing a team-requested event and alert him that someone around him was taking too much food from the family room. The gripes between player and organization, as multiple sources said, had become “petty” in the fifth year of a relationship many believed should’ve ended years before.
Kerr never had much success reaching Kuminga on a deeper level, typically one of his coaching superpowers. He’d given him handwritten notes, sent long text messages, tried to connect. But Kuminga rarely reciprocated. Kuminga normally responded dispassionately and sporadically.
Inside Kerr’s office that afternoon, exasperation boiled over. The discussion went from small picture to bigger picture. Frustrations were let out on both sides – Kerr voicing his displeasure with Kuminga’s lack of buy-in and competitiveness toward the team goals and Kuminga letting out his hurt about Kerr’s longtime lack of belief in him as a player.
The meeting ended, sources familiar with the exchange said, with Kerr slamming his white board in frustration. Kuminga, incidentally, then went out and delivered what Kerr would later describe as two of the most passionate practices he’d seen from him, running the floor, attacking the paint, defending with force.
Source: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/47880753/inside-ugly-5-year-split-jonathan-kuminga-warriors