Name to remember in an era to forget
Warriors fans who want to show they’re not bandwagoners often mention Vonteego Cummings
In the basement of Vonteego Cummings’ rural Georgia home, surrounded by old photos of a bald 20something in baggy basketball shorts and a white headband, hangs a framed No. 5 Warriors jersey.
The navy, orange and yellow color scheme is straight from one of the most miserable eras in Golden State history, a twoseason debacle (19992001) that spanned three head coaches, 45 players and 128 losses. Cummings has dubbed those Warriors teams “The Bad News Bears.” As he put it, “The only constant was the opponent circling us as an easy win.”
Few would fault Cummings had he rid his house of any reminders of that rough introduction to professional basketball. If not for the Warriors’ dysfunction, he might have lasted more than three seasons in the NBA. But 19 years removed from his final Golden State game, Cummings remembers his Oakland stint fondly — not just because it was the realization of a longtime goal, but because many in the Bay Area still remember him.
As the Warriors blossomed into an NBA dynasty, Cummings became the goto name drop for Golden State fans eager to prove they’re not bandwagoners. Only diehard fans would know about a parttime starter who shot 37.8% from the field over 141 games with a leaguewide laughingstock.
Unlike other role players from awful Warriors teams like Felton Spencer, Carlos Rogers, Victor Alexander, Donald Royal or Duane Ferrell, Cummings endeared himself to fans hungry for something — anything — to cheer. His unique first name, the combination of his mother’s two favorite cars
(Volkswagen and the Mercury Montego), lent him a certain charm.
It also didn’t hurt that he was naive to the trappings of fame. At a time when many players were beginning to wear custom suits to games, Cummings wore Timberlands and an oversized bomber jacket.
When he spoke to reporters in the third person, fans could see that he was a freshfaced 23yearold just excited to be in the NBA. Cummings’ neighbors on Alameda’s Bay Farm Island knew him as the affable celebrity who played video games with their kids after autographing their sneakers.
His place in Warriors lore was cemented midway through his second season when, after missing 15 games with a broken right cheekbone, he returned to the court with a huge face mask. These days, a week seldom passes without at least one Golden State fan referencing Cummings on social media.
Two weeks ago, when The Chronicle put out the call on Twitter for suggestions for a potential “Where are they now?” series on former Warriors, Cummings was named nine times — by far the most mentions of any player. It’s clear that he is viewed as more than just a readymade punchline for jokes about Golden State’s dark years.
When Warriors fans bring up Cummings in conversation, they tend to speak of him with an affection that suggests he’s a lovable reminder of how far the franchise has come. Cummings, 44, appreciates the continued fascination with him. Though he rarely checks social media, his Twitter bio proclaims himself “The Original Splash Brotha!” and “a founding father of #DubNation.”
“As long as the fans remember me, I’m happy,” Cummings said. “I played my heart out. I was young, and I was just trying to do the right thing. There are probably a lot of people that they don’t remember, so I’m just blessed to be remembered.”
That hasn’t kept Cummings from wondering how his career might have unfolded had he not landed with the Warriors. A threetime AllBig East selection at Pittsburgh, Cummings was ecstatic when he went to the Pacers with the 26th pick of the 1999 NBA draft.
Fresh off its second straight Eastern Conference finals appearance, Indiana was the ideal destination for any young player, a stable organization loaded with leaders such as Reggie Miller, Chris Mullin and Mark Jackson. But just a couple of minutes after Cummings heard his name called, he learned that the Pacers had traded him and a future firstround pick to the Warriors for center Jeff Foster.
Suddenly, Cummings was headed to a rebuilding franchise with a crowded backcourt. In his two seasons with Golden State, he struggled to adapt to the team’s everchanging lineups, often making mistakes because he wasn’t sure where to be on the floor.
It didn’t help that the Warriors brought in Dave Cowens at the start of Cummings’ second season to replace interim head coach Garry St. Jean, whose upbeat coaching style jibed with Cummings’ easygoing personality. Early in the 200001 season, after smelling Cognac at practice, Cowens accused Cummings of coming to the facility intoxicated — even though management knew that point guard Mookie Blaylock had the drinking problem.
This created a distrust between Cowens and Cummings that lingered for months. A week before the 200102 opener, the Warriors packaged Cummings in a threeway trade that sent him to Philadelphia for forward Cedric Henderson and a future firstround pick.
Less than a year later, after getting waived by Cleveland in training camp, Cummings embarked on a pro odyssey. In less than a decade, he played for teams in suburban New York and Texas, Italy, Serbia, Israel, Spain, Croatia, Greece, Cyprus and Poland.
“Regardless of how you’re playing, if your team is not winning, you’re expendable,” Cummings said of his brief Warriors tenure. “If I would’ve played for the Indiana Pacers my rookie year, things would’ve gone differently for me.”
Six months after he retired in 2013, Cummings, then 37, was visiting an old friend in Puerto Rico when a club along the country’s northern coast offered him a contract. Instead of boarding his scheduled flight home, Cummings stayed for five years (two as a player, three as an assistant coach). Puerto Rico, with its sandy beaches and friendly locals, seemed like a place he could settle down.
Then, one afternoon in September 2017, Cummings saw the sky turn black and knew something was terribly wrong. By the time Hurricane Maria was done ravaging the island, nearly 3,000 people had died and roughly 80% of the U.S. territory’s agriculture had been wiped out.
Cummings, whose house was damaged, decided to move back to Thomson, Ga. — his hometown of 6,606 people about 120 miles east of Atlanta. Before the coronavirus pandemic forced him to stay home, he was training young basketball players through his VC5 Academy. Camps were held at Vonteego Cummings Community Park.
“I’m the first and only person ever from my town to make it to the NBA,” said Cummings, who has no children and has not been married. “When I decided to do the training academy, a lot of parents and kids around here gravitated toward it.”
When Cummings was on the Warriors, people in Thomson watched Golden State games to support him. Now, thanks to Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, the Warriors are the town’s favorite team.
No one is a bigger fan than Cummings, who estimated that he watches at least 75 games per season on NBA League Pass. At the root of his infatuation with the Curryled Warriors is how different they are than his old teams. When at its best, Golden State expertly exhibits the fundamentals of the game, pulling from the Harlem Globetrotters and Hickory High of “Hoosiers” fame for an uptempo style all its own.
More than a few friends have told Cummings, who entered the NBA as a 6foot3 point guard capable of defending multiple positions and finding open shooters, that he would have been a perfect fit on these Warriors.
“Pretty soon, I’m going to get one of their new jerseys, have my name put on the back and hang it up next to my old one,” Cummings said. “That’s my family for life. I’m a Warrior for life.”