Warriors’ head coach Steve Kerr has high praise for James Wiseman following blowout loss

In both his NBA debut and the Warriors’ first game of the season, No. 2 overall pick James Wiseman thrived and impressive head coach Steve Kerr.

The Golden State Warriors actually opted to start the young and inexperienced James Wiseman as they made the trip to New York to take on the Brooklyn Nets.

They had few options at center as both Marquese Chriss and Kevon Looney are traditional power forwards. While the Warriors have converted them to centers, they opted to give their 7-foot-1 rookie some run early on.

It wasn’t just Wiseman’s numbers that show his impact on the game. While it’s a flawed stat for one single game and fails to always paint the full picture, it was easy to tell why Wiseman has the starting lineup’s best plus/minus at -10.

Ending with 24 minutes, Wiseman was 7-for-13 from the field and 1-for-1 from deep. He also managed to shoot eight free throws of which he only made four of. His debut didn’t include a block which was a bit shocking.

As head coach Steve Kerr also noted, he missed a few defensive rotations, allowing Deandre Jordan some easy alley-oops. But, overall, Kerr praised the young big man following his first game in the league.

"“I hate to show my age by using this expression, but he literally fell off the turnip truck last week and he went out and got 19 points in 24 minutes in his first NBA game. He is so raw. There’s so far to go, in terms of calling out defensive coverages. The game’s slowing down for him so he can execute on both ends.“That’s what’s so exciting, is he’s a really smart young man, he’s got a great work ethic and he hasn’t even scratched the surface. That’s what I think is really exciting — to think about where he’ll be a few months from now, and beyond that, a couple years from now. He’s got a chance to be a great player in this league,” Kerr said per NBC Sports’ Alex Espinoza."

We’ve written before that Wiseman has all the attributes of an all-time great rookie, and now we can clearly see that the opportunity will be there as well. Kerr will likely continue to rock with him as the team’s starting center.

With the starters, especially when Draymond Green returns, Wiseman will fit in perfectly. It also makes sense in the fact that Marquese Chriss seemingly has a better all-around game on the offensive end while Wiseman still has developing to do.

The Warriors didn’t start their season how they wanted to, but they did get enough from their rookie to be gitty about his future.