Each season, there is usually at least one NBA player per team who catches the league and perhaps even their own coaches, teammates and fanbase by surprise. Through hard work and perhaps some luck, they find their way into the rotation and exceed expectations by becoming far more valuable to the team than almost anyone thought they would be. The Warriors have seen their fair share of this phenomenon in recent years, with Jordan Poole and Juan Toscano-Anderson filling that role in the 2020-2021 season. Eric Paschall played the part the season prior, and Alfonzo McKinnie the year before that. And now that training camp is less than two weeks away, it is worth speculating on who this year’s surprise will be. Which Warrior will perform better and have a greater role than currently projected?

While a few players have cases, I think the best bet for that title is Jonathan Kuminga. The Warriors took him with the seventh overall pick in this year’s draft. He spent the previous season with the NBA G League Ignite, where he posted strong averages of 15.8 points and 7.2 rebounds per game, albeit with poor shooting numbers. He is a terrific athlete who can get to the rim in isolation sets and a solid defender with the potential to become elite on that end of the floor.

One of the more common criticisms we’ve heard about Kuminga’s game has been that he’s still a raw talent. His year in the G League consisted of only 13 games as COVID-19 shortened the season. When the Warriors drafted him, everyone was fully aware that he would need a lot of development. However, former Santa Cruz Warriors head coach and current Golden State Warriors player development coach, Kris Weems, doesn’t believe Kuminga’s game is as unrefined as advertised. Weems spoke on the matter during the Summer League in Las Vegas.

"I don't think he is too raw," Golden State’s newly appointed player development coach said. "I think if anything, you add to what he already brings to the table like his physicality and his athleticism. Now we just need to raise his level of basketball IQ, and he's already a smart player. To get stuff done as an 18-year-old, basically, a high school player playing against pros, you just don't do that and not know what you're doing."

Furthermore, with training camp about to begin, Kuminga will have time to develop even more. He will get the opportunity not only to improve his game but also to find his place in Golden State’s system. The Warriors plan to use training camp as a way to test his versatility and give him practice reps at multiple positions, including small forward, power forward and even center.

To better understand why this offseason could be especially beneficial for Kuminga, we can look at James Wiseman, the Warriors’ other major project. Wiseman joined the Warriors last season after playing just three collegiate games. At times, his lack of experience showed. His decision-making on both offense and defense was the sign of someone clearly still learning the professional style and pace of play. Several statistics suggest that the Warriors were better with him off the floor.

While some of his struggles can be attributed to typical rookie adjustments, others were more likely the product of his unusual entrance into the league. COVID-19 delayed the 2020 NBA Draft to November and the start of the season to December. The roughly one-month gap between the selection of Wiseman and his regular-season debut meant that neither he nor the Warriors had time to prepare. Wiseman didn’t have a Summer League, a training camp or a typical offseason to properly get ready for the season. The Warriors players and coaches, on the other hand, didn’t get enough opportunities to integrate Wiseman into the rotation prior to the start of the season.

This is not a concern with Kuminga. Although the draft still took place closer to the start of the regular season, Kuminga has already played Summer League games and will have a full training camp. Steve Kerr and the rest of the coaching staff will have a strong sense of how he can fit into the lineup. By the start of the season, he should be a more NBA-ready player than Wiseman was.

Despite the challenges he faced, Wiseman showed many times what role he is best for in the NBA: a long, skilled, shooting center who can use his athleticism to his advantage on both ends of the court. Whenever he made a strong play or had a good game, Warriors fans and coaches were left to wonder where he might be if he’d had a normal offseason. Now Kuminga will get the chance that Wiseman didn’t.

There will absolutely be rough patches in Jonathan Kuminga’s rookie season. He is not even 19 years old yet with minimal experience playing basketball at a level higher than high school and travel ball. At times, the need for his development will be blatantly obvious. But there is a good chance this will happen less often than anticipated. He could be playing at a much more advanced level much sooner than people expected when the Warriors drafted him. If this happens, we can look back at the Summer League and training camp to understand why.