Warriors Hope Steve Kerr Is the Final Ingredient in Creating an NBA Juggernaut
LOS ANGELES — An abundance of enticing young talent drew Steve Kerr back to California last spring.
There was 26-year-old Stephen Curry, the baby-faced point guard with the killer three-point shot.
There was Klay Thompson, the 24-year-old shooting guard with the smooth two-way game.
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And then there was Matthew Kerr, age 16, whose talents are more cerebral.
Steve Kerr spent last week, his first as the Golden State Warriors' head coach, instilling a new offensive mindset (key phrase: "move the ball"), while working out his team in Santa Monica. On Friday, he wrapped up the lesson by early afternoon to give himself time to beat the traffic to San Diego.
Matthew Kerr was starring that night in a high school production of "Rent," and Dad planned to be there.
This is the advantage of being the head coach: You set the schedule. And this was the allure of coaching in the Bay Area, instead of New York: Kerr is just hours away from his San Diego home.
"I can maintain a semblance of family life," a smiling Kerr told Bleacher Report last week. "The balance is important."
Kerr's wife Margot and their two sons, Matthew and 21-year-old Nick, reside in San Diego. Kerr's daughter, Madeleine, is a sophomore at UC Berkeley, a short drive from the Warriors' practice facility.
These are perks the Knicks could not offer. Even the presence of Phil Jackson, a personal mentor, could not trump the familial tugs.
"I'll be a better coach, just having my family around," Kerr said. "It's empowering."
Also empowering: Having a roster stacked with All-Star talent to begin your coaching career. On this front, there was no comparison. And there's no question Kerr made the right call.
The Knicks offered Carmelo Anthony (assuming he re-signed) and the promise of cap room. The Warriors offered Curry, Thompson, Andre Iguodala, David Lee, Andrew Bogut and, well, by that point it was already a rout.
Kerr's challenge now is to harness that talent more effectively—and take it further—than his predecessor, Mark Jackson, could. Though the Warriors won 47 and 51 games the last two seasons, making the playoffs both years, there was always a sense they had underachieved.
The Warriors tapped Kerr to unlock their full offensive potential.
The Curry-Thompson backcourt might be the NBA's best (a "beautiful combination," Kerr says). Lee is a skilled scorer. Iguodala and Bogut are deft passers. The Warriors should be one of the most potent teams in the NBA. Yet they ranked 12th last season in points per 100 possessions—solid, but not elite.
The offense too often stalled and stagnated, resulting in muddled isolation plays and contested jumpers. There was little movement or dynamism, and little sense of cohesion.
"We had guys last year that sometimes wouldn't touch the ball for 10 straight possessions," Bogut told Bleacher Report, "and then all of a sudden a key play, Steph or Klay get doubled, swing-swing-swing, they're open in the corner, but then it's a pressure shot. You haven't shot the ball, you haven't touched the ball…and you have a wide open shot and you've gotta make it.
"That was kind of our problem toward the end of games, I thought," Bogut said. "Sometimes we relied too much on trying to get Steph and Klay shots."
Nearly 11 percent of the Warriors' possessions last season were isolation plays, the third highest rate in the league, per Synergy Sports. Nor were the Warriors efficient on those plays, scoring just .842 points per isolation, which ranked 14th.
The Warriors' internal analysis was just as damning. By one assessment, the Warriors were among the league leaders in possessions in which the ball never changed sides of the court. And yet the Warriors had their best success in games in which they averaged three to four passes per possession.
These are the numbers that Kerr and his staff—led by veterans Alvin Gentry and Ron Adams—are trying to hammer home as they work to change bad habits.
"When we were hitting shots, that's great," Lee said of the iso-heavy play. "But when we weren't hitting outside shots, it seemed to get stagnant. And that's when we had big lulls offensively. With the firepower we have in the first eight or nine (rotation) guys, we should never have that."
Kerr's playbook is a blend of his own NBA experiences: a little of Phil Jackson's triangle offense, a little of Gregg Popovich's motion offense and bits of the uptempo system the Phoenix Suns deployed under Gentry and Mike D'Antoni, when Kerr was the general manager.
The Warriors hope to take advantage of their speed and get easier, earlier shots. When that fails, and it becomes a halfcourt game, Kerr's prime directive kicks in: Move. The. Ball.
That phrase bounced off the walls of every Warriors practice last week, and is now repeated like a personal mantra, by every member of the organization.
"He wants us to keep that ball moving," Thompson said, "because we have too many good guys on this team who can go off to just play iso-ball. That's what we've gotta keep improving on."
It's an easy case to make, given the personnel. Lee and Bogut are among the best passers at their positions. Ditto for Iguodala, who has often played the role of point-forward in his career. The Warriors are uniquely suited to a ball-movement attack, to become a younger, livelier version of the pass-happy Spurs.
"The idea is: You guys were really good, but let's take the next step," Kerr said. "Here's how we take the next step: We get better ball movement, we get more uncontested shots.
"Defenses in the NBA are really, really good," Kerr added. "If you only force them to make one or two reads in a possession, and rotations, it's not enough. So I want us to force defenses to react four or five times in a possession, because that's when you're more likely to get a breakdown on a defense and an open shot as a result."
That means more cutting, more passing and less standing around while Curry and Thompson take turns launching threes (as successful as that may be). It also means more passes to the post—not necessarily for Lee or Bogut to score, but to force defenses to adjust and to loosen the pressure on Curry and Thompson.
Bogut, who Kerr called "a brilliant passer" on par with Marc Gasol, was virtually ignored in the Warriors' offense the last two seasons. Now, he's a critical hub.
"We know if we don't have an easy option to the basket, we'll find open guys," Bogut said. "I think it's starting to become contagious with our team."
Around the Warriors, there is a reticence to draw direct contrasts to Mark Jackson's approach. After all, they became a playoff team again on his watch, and made huge strides on defense, where they ranked third in points allowed per 100 possessions last season.
Some rival scouts and coaches say the Warriors' defense was never as elite, or feared, as the analytics suggest. But the Warriors were stout enough that a better offense might have pushed them into the West's top tier.
Improving their fourth-quarter execution, or bumping up their efficiency rating by even a point or two, might net the Warriors another four or five wins—the difference between a top-four finish (and home-court advantage in the playoffs) and a disadvantageous low seeding.
Even with a flawed offense, and Bogut missing due to injury, the Warriors took the Clippers to seven games last spring, suggesting that, with a few minor improvements and a little good fortune, they might be ready to join the elite.
The rest is up to their rookie coach.
"This team, they know they can be really good," Kerr said. "I pound that home every day with them."
Howard Beck covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @HowardBeck.
