A rival executive believes Jonathan Kuminga has the power to royally screw over the Warriors this offseason with just one simple trick: accepting a well-below-market-value contract.

In the latest updates of the never-ending Kuminga saga, most of which have just been noting that almost nothing has changed, the spectre of the young forward’s last resort has emerged. Anthony Slater, now with ESPN, noted in a report published Thursday that an incredibly likely option for Kuminga to take this offseason is to accept the Dubs’ qualifying offer.

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A qualifying offer is the first contract shown to a restricted free agent that formalizes the “restricted” part of this process. It officially gives the player’s original team the right to match any deal that player receives as he negotiates with other organizations. Qualifying offers are one-year deals with a small salary bump, much less than the player in question is looking for on the market. In Kuminga’s case, it’s a one-year, $8 million deal. For context, anonymous rival executives speaking with the Athletic in an article published Friday shared their estimate that Kuminga was worth a salary of between $17 million and $25 million.

Once an athlete plays out the qualifying offer, he becomes an unrestricted free agent the following offseason. The kicker is that if a player like Kuminga accepts the qualifying offer, he’d have the right to veto trades he’s involved in this season under that deal.

This is where most of the problem comes in for the Golden State Warriors, according to an anonymous exec who believes Kuminga deserves a three-year, $65 million contract.

“If he takes the qualifying offer, the Warriors are f—ked from a team-building standpoint, because they need to get him on a deal where they can trade him,” the executive said to the Athletic. “That’s the key for them.”

Reporter Fred Katz detailed this further in his story. The ideal for the Warriors would be for Kuminga to accept a “middling” deal that “gives them a tool to acquire someone of significance midseason” — it’s worth remembering at this point that, by all accounts, Kuminga and the Dubs don’t see eye to eye on his role. But that only works if Kuminga signs for a salary of around $25 million or so.

The qualifying offer throws a complete wrench in that plan. Not only is $8 million not enough to match salaries for a player of value in return for dealing Kuminga, but they’d be unable to get a deal done in general unless Kuminga approved it. The cherry on top is that Kuminga has until Oct. 1 to mull this over, with no incentive to make his choice any sooner.

Of course, it’s not guaranteed to be the smartest move on Kuminga’s end. The 22-year-old would be on a deal where he’s betting on himself, and he could very well lose that bet by way of poor performance or injury. Still, more teams are expected to have cap space next season, so that risk is lowered thanks to the expected increased interest that will come the way of all free agents in 2026, including Kuminga.

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This also means the young forward has a scenario where he could win a bet on himself in the near future should he choose the qualifying offer path. As far as the Warriors are concerned, the only way this works out for them at all is if Kuminga suddenly finds his form and contributes heavily to a championship run, only to ultimately leave Golden State for nothing next year. Given that the last time he showed out in the postseason the Warriors were unceremoniously eliminated in five games, it’s hard to imagine that possibility becoming reality, leaving only Kuminga as a possible winner.