Assessing Steve Kerr's Early Season Performance as Warriors Head Coach

Steve Kerr entered his inaugural coaching season with a lot of questions for his Golden State Warriors, but he looks like a seasoned veteran in his early performance.

Coach Kerr opened up last season's underperforming Dubs’ offense by using a system that plays heavily on the triangle strategies of 11-time NBA champion coach Phil Jackson in moving the ball and spacing the floor.

He also has shown a more open style of communication that feeds off the experience of his coaches and players alike. In the win against the Portland Trail Blazers on November 2, the San Jose Mercury News' Diamond Leung tweeted that Coach Kerr identified assistant coach Ron Adams for suggesting the trap instead of fouling.

 
The Warriors have started with a 4-0 record, and Kerr became the first Warriors’ coach to win the initial four games of his coaching career. 

After the lopsided win against the Los Angeles Clippers on November 5, the USA Today reported how center Andrew Bogut noticed the comfort level with his new head coach.

"

He said after the game, 'We had bad stretches in this game tonight,' " Bogut told USA TODAY Sports. "It's scary to think if we do those things the right way, that our ceiling — we don't know where it's at. That's a tribute to (the coaching staff) as well. He's well prepared. His practices are well structured. He knows his stuff. We go through things we need to go through, late-game situations and that kind of stuff. It's been fantastic so far.

"

Let’s take a closer look at both sides of the court to evaluate his immediate impact.

Free-Flowing Offense

The new offense is a faster, more refined animal focused on ball movement. Bogut's role as the fulcrum of the triangle-styled offense is opening up space for both of the Splash Brothers to dominate.

The team is much more focused on spreading the ball around and creating open looks. This strategy is significantly different compared to the isolation-heavy style they used last season.

The Mercury’s Tim Kawakami tweeted the difference from last year:

As a result, more players are getting involved in the offense and taking advantage of the opportunities. Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are top-four scorers on a per-game average.

Leung tweeted that Draymond Green heard the chatter among opponents:

Besides having Bogut as the table-setter, which has made him more productive on the offensive end for the first time with the Dubs, the true advantage has been in favor of Thompson.

Since he inked his four-year extension on October 31, Thompson has dominated by scoring a career-high 41 points against the Los Angeles Lakers and hitting a game-winning shot to beat the Trail Blazers in the hostile Moda Center in Portland.

Oh, he also threw down one of the biggest jams when he posterized the Blazers’ Robin Lopez:

Thompson is showing off his entire arsenal, shooting behind the arc but also more active in driving to the hoop. He is averaging 6.3 attempts at the free-throw line this season compared to a career average of only two attempts per game. 

The offense must really be doing its job if Curry is not getting top billing here. However, Curry is pulling his weight by putting up a line of 26 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 7.0 APG and 3.0 SPG.

He is scoring, but unlike the past few seasons he doesn’t carry the entire offensive load on his back. He is relied upon with his beautiful stroke, but there are other options.

As seen in the big rivalry win against the Clippers on November 5, Curry made a nice dish to a red-hot Green:

Green has stepped into the role left vacant by the hamstring injury to David Lee. Green has excelled as a stretch 4 by burying 50 percent of his three-point attempts so far.

With Lee’s cameo in the game (he later returned to the locker room with hamstring issues), Green flexed his muscles by scoring a career-high 24 points.

As tweeted by Kawakami, Coach Kerr is happy with Green in his current starting lineup:

The bottom line is that the offense has the fastest pace (100.7 possessions in a 48-minute game), ninth-best offensive rating and second-best effective field-goal percentage in the NBA as of November 5.

Coach Kerr's system is working early on, but like his predecessors in coaching style, Jackson and Gregg Popovich, he will continue to find ways to improve it.

Stingy Defense

As exciting as the hype surrounding the offense and the actual play is, the defense has been the backbone of this Warriors squad so far. The team ranks highest in defensive rating (93.1) and has allowed the fifth-fewest points per game (93.8).

The roster has last season’s NBA All-Defensive First Team member Andre Iguodala (currently ranked ninth defensively), but it also has Curry (second), Bogut (third) and Green (seventh) in the top 10.

Out of those names, Curry is probably the most surprising, but he likes the challenge of guarding top offensive stars.  

As reported by Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle, Warriors coach Ron Adams has been the biggest reason for Curry’s defensive prowess:

"

He holds me to a higher standard,” Curry said. “We watch a lot of film and talk a lot about how we’re supposed to see that end of the floor and what it means if I’m able to do what I’m supposed to do every single night for our team’s success. It doesn’t matter how many points I score, he seems to find one or two things that I could have done better on the defensive end after every single game. That kind of knocks you back into reality a little bit, knowing you can always get better.

"

Beside individual efforts, it is the team effort that is making the engine rev. Even with the ball spacing on offense, players retreat to their positions to limit fast-break points and easy buckets.

The team effort was most visible versus the Trail Blazers, when the team had to force a turnover or make a stop to get another offensive opportunity.

Kawakami noticed that unity and desire with this tweet:

At the heart of this defense is Bogut, who is definitely enjoying the additional help from Curry and Green so far. He no longer has to help as much or have to be in two places at once. 

USA Today’s Sam Esfandiari likes the way Bogut has shown up early in the season:

With assistant coach Adams by Kerr’s side, the Warriors should remain a top-tier defensive team.

Moving Forward

Coach Kerr is sitting pretty with a 4-0 record to start out his NBA coaching career, but he needs to know how to sustain it. There will be ups and downs, injuries and malaise that he will have to deal with this season.

The telltale sign of his progress will be when Kerr faces his first signs of trouble. How will he adapt or react to it?

He will need to continue his trend of listening to his assistant coaches and banking on their years of experience.

He will also need to get comfortable with his rotations. The starting five work great, but he will need to know when to implement a small lineup, rest his regulars intermittently and allocate playing time to his key reserves.

The only area where the team is not maximizing production is at the small forward position. Harrison Barnes is playing better than last year but is not setting the world on fire. He hasn’t increased his points-per-game total but is getting to the line more often, has more assists and is corralling more boards in a small sample size of this season.

Sixth man, Iguodala is productive and a major glue piece to the second unit, but his numbers have decreased across the board except for field-goal percentage. As sixth man, Iguodala is a point-forward, so he can play at multiple spots and is not afraid of getting others involved.

Kerr will have to do a better job featuring the 3 position within the offense.

The biggest elephant in the room is turnovers. The Warriors are last in the league in giving the ball up, as they hand out gifts more than 20 times per game.

The foundation of the offense is ball movement and spacing, but Kerr must start to limit errors now, because when it comes to playoff time, the team can’t be so careless. 

Jordan Ramirez from WarriorsWorld.net tweeted Kerr’s breakdown of the turnovers versus the Los Angeles Clippers:

Co-owner Joe Lacob and general manager Bob Myers should be very excited with the results so far. However, the Warriors face a tougher schedule with a road game versus the Houston Rockets on November 8 and a home date on November 11 with the ever-tricky NBA champion San Antonio Spurs.

Coach Kerr has definitely turned the Warriors into a better team, but can they be the toast of the Western Conference? That question will still need to be answered.

Follow @ScottInTheBay