Less than five minutes into the Golden State Warriors ' opening-night win over the Lakers last Tuesday, Jonathan Kuminga took a pass from Stephen Curry along the right wing, immediately put his head down and drove into the paint, and proceeded to fire up a contested 14-foot brick that damn near hit all backboard before anyone else had touched the ball.

You could almost feel the "here we go again" frustration coming from Steve Kerr, who has, for the past four years, been somewhere between hesitant and outright unwilling to trust Kuminga with regular rotation minutes, let alone the starting spot Kuminga has openly coveted, in large part because of shots like this.

But this time, Kuminga knew what he had done wrong. He immediately raised his hand and acknowledged his mistake. And su

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