Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr: “There’s no formula for this stuff. You just try to feel it as a coach.”
This may be Steve Kerr‘s toughest job yet.
Starting Tuesday night — against the backdrop of the Golden State Warriors’ NBA championship ring ceremony, the start of the franchise’s final season in Oakland and the potential breakup of the team’s all-star roster — Kerr’s two-time defending champions seem to have motivation enough to become the first team in 53 years to make it to five straight NBA Finals.
But no one’s saying it’s going to be easy. There’s a lot of emotion and drama built in to the Warriors’ workplace beyond the 82-game regular-season schedule: Kevin Durant and, possibly, Klay Thompson could exit after the season, new hire DeMarcus Cousins must find a role in coming back from an Achilles injury, and the Warriors will leave “Roaracle” Arena and tip off next year at the gleaming Chase Center in San Francisco.
Kerr, the workplace manager, is taking a Zen-like approach to it all.
Stephen Curry
“Obviously, we want to keep this thing going,” Kerr said at last month’s Warriors media day, “but at some point you just have to enjoy the moment, enjoy the now, because there’s going to be so much speculation as to what’s ahead. Nobody knows what’s ahead.”
So how does Kerr keep a group of on-court workers focused through the season and continue to build the Warriors culture through injuries, interpersonal conflicts and responsibilities that can shift game to game or quarter to quarter?
“There’s no formula for this stuff,” Kerr said. “You just try to feel it as a coach.”
Calling last season “a grind,” Kerr wants to keep that year in its own compartment so Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, Shawn Livingston, Durant, Thompson, Cousins and others can focus on a brand-new season.
“We are playing with some house money,” Kerr said. “We won three of the last four championships. Our place in the history of the league is pretty secure. I don’t think our guys should feel a ton of pressure. I think they should feel the importance of trying to do it again, because this may be the last time we have this current iteration of the Warriors, just given all the free agents and the money crunch and everything else.
“So we don’t know what’s going to happen, so why not just go all out and enjoy every step of the way?”
That message is being carried by Warriors veterans to newcomers and younger players.
Andre Iguodala: Good personnel.
“Our front office and basketball operations do a great job of bringing in good personnel, good kids who want to learn, who want to be in this league for a very long time,” Iguodala said. “So they’re open and they all come in with an open mind, and it’s not just me. It’s Draymond, it’s Steph, it’s KD, it’s Klay.”
General Manager Bob Myers, the architect of turning the Warriors from basketball laughingstocks to undisputed champions, sees Kerr’s management as the key.
“If you enjoy going to work and you’re talented and you’re in a good culture, hopefully good things come of that,” Myers said. “So Steve’s good at that. Steve’s a great captain to lead us in the right direction. He’s got a great pulse of what the team needs.”