Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr has been honest about his reasons for coming back when there was a time last season he was convinced he would walk away from the team. It was not to chase another ring, but instead to try to set the team up in a position to succeed going forward. He thinks the best way to do that is by implementing this new offense, but the Warriors are already testing his patience in the preseason.
After the team’s fairly sloppy performance against the Los Angeles Lakers in alas Vegas, Kerr was brutally honest about where the team is at.
“We’re not anywhere close to where we want to be.” He went on to say that the team is committing too many turnovers and has a way to go to fully get a hold of the new “five-out” scheme.
On the one hand, this is to be expected. It’s the preseason and guys are knocking the rust off while also trying to do something new. At the same time, it’s very easy to see this year’s team really testing Kerr’s patience because he has a lot of veterans and he’s trying to get them to do something new when they’ve played a certain way for a long time.
Stephen Curry and Draymond Green were given a little bit of a free pass to turn the ball over for years, but Kerr has now said that they no longer have that turnover immunity. Both Curry and Green has been publicly receptive to this and have agreed that they need to be smarter with the ball, but it’s one thing to say “we need fewer turnovers” and a very different thing to actually cut down on them.
Steve Kerr is going to have to be patient as Warriors try to learn new offense
Curry has continued to be loose with the ball at times in the preseason and there’s no reason to think that won’t continue into the regular season. It surely won’t be for lack of effort, but he’s been used to turning the ball over on occasion for so long that it will take time to consistently make smarter decisions with the ball.
Kerr came back because he still wants to do this which is admirable. Perhaps the only goal he has over the course of his two-year contract is to get Golden State fully enmeshed with this new offense so once he’s gone they can return to being competitive.
Whether that actually happens may be a different story, but this season is going to take a lot of patience from Kerr and the team might just look plain bad for a while as it tries to figure things out. He’s harped on turnovers for years, but if he really wants to see a reduction, it’s going to take time and he’s going to have to be okay with that.
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