Jonathan Kuminga Free Agency Is Currently 'A Mess': Insider

The Jonathan Kuminga free agency continues to slow-play this summer. The Los Angeles Lakers have been interested all along, but the player's salary demands have made it difficult for a deal to get done. 

The Cleveland Cavaliers are also in the mix, but the value Kuminga's putting on himself just doesn't jibe with what other teams are offering. And there just isn't that much flexibility salary-wise on the market. Teams just don't have the space at this point in the offseason.

Insider Brett Siegel of Clutch Points has the latest, and call the whole thing "a mess."

I still think he's going to end up with the Lakers. I think it's the best spot for him. But we've seen a lot about Jonathan Kuminga, where 'Oh, he wants $20 million a year. No, he wants 15. Well the offer was $10 million annually from the Lakers. Can they get a potential sign and trade around that mark and what would they even send out? Is there something that the Hawks would want?

So again it's just a a mess because no team has money to sign this guy outright. And when you start talking signing trades, you start referring to him as kind of a restricted free agent in a way.

Kuminga finally got his wish and got dealt out of Golden State last season after he was simply unable to get on the floor for Steve Kerr's team. In his 16 games with the Atlanta Hawks, however, he didn't do himself any favors, averaging just 12.3 points per game. And his contract demands do not match either his recent performance, or the availability of funds from teams on the market.

Sean Deveney of heavy.com reports that the Lakers "made a sincere offer in early July for Kuminga to sign a two-year, $20 million contract that would have given him the option to leave after the season and test the market in free agency again. That was not enough money for Kuminga, though."

Additionally, one NBA executive said recently, "“I think he would like to play for the Lakers and they’d like to have him, but I know they–and a lot of teams–have already told him, ‘Look, this is what we can do,’ so he has all the information. The money, the cap space, it has been spent. He’s not waiting for anything new out there, because there is nothing new that’s gonna happen. So, he is stuck. But he is entitled to take as much time as he wants.”

It certainly looks like the Kuminga saga is going to drag on a bit longer as we get into the dog days of summer.