Warriors GM 'Confident' Steve Kerr Will Stay on New Contract After 2025-26 NBA Season
Golden State Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy says he is "confident" Steve Kerr will be back after the 2025-26 NBA season.
Kerr is coaching this season on an expiring contract after signing a two-year, $35 million extension in 2024.
"Look, the reality is, Steve can say as long as he wants," Dunleavy said during a Tuesday appearance on NBC Sports Bay Area's Warriors Pregame Live (h/t NBC Sports' Angelina Martin).
Dunleavy continued: "If he's going to coach here, we want to make sure that he fully wants to be here, is fully committed and all that. And I think Steve's taking the time right now, he's taking the season. We're respectful of that.
"I'm confident that he'll be back and we'll get something done. But this is not like a normal situation with a coach in the last year of his deal. This is Steve Kerr. This is unique, and we're comfortable with where we're at with him. We feel like we'll get something done."
The Warriors claimed a 98-79 win over the visiting Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday night and have started Kerr's 12th season as head coach with a 4-1 record.
Kerr told reporters in September that he was "very comfortable" heading into the season on an expiring contract, and that he planned to "just see how it is at the end of the year."
The Warriors head coach then said in an appearance on Tim Kawakami's The TK Show earlier this month that "I'm just at the point in my career, and we are at the point organizationally, where I just want to make sure everything feels right."
"I think one of the things that I'm aware of is in sports, and in every sport, there's kind of an expiration date on coaching jobs," Kerr told Kawakami. "And if you feel, as a coach, that it's not clicking anymore, then it's time to go. And I don't think that's the case. I don't believe that's where we are right now... if you had to ask me, I would guess that it would keep going. But I don't really feel like that's the right call to make, because I just want to see where this all is.
"Maybe we're at the All-Star break, and it's like, 'Hey, this is gonna keep going. Let's do this.' But for right now, let's just kind of see where this all goes."
Dunleavy was later asked in an Oct. 10 appearance on 95.7 The Game if Kerr's hesitation to discuss a new contract had led to "uncertainty" about whether the head coach would be back for the 2026-27 season.
"Yeah, I mean, I guess technically there is," Dunleavy answered. "I wouldn't really classify it as that. This isn't a regular situation with the head coach, where he's in the last year of his deal, and it's maybe a lame duck situation. We know what it is with Steve... We're going to give him the grace of this season and to get through it, or to get through some of it, to kind of feel and see where he's at mentally, physically and all that."
Kerr's lack of commitment past this season raises possibility that Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler, who each have one year remaining on their current deals, and Draymond Green, who has a player option for 2026-27, could be playing in the Bay Area past the head coach's tenure.
"I get how it doesn't, maybe, line up," Dunleavy said on 95.7 The Game about Kerr's contract compared to those three deals. "But it's hard to see Steve moving on, or to see Steph finishing his career without Steve on the sideline. So I think it'll all work out."
The Warriors have so far done their best to convince Kerr he'll be able to continue coaching at a high level in the future by ranking as one of the NBA's strongest teams through the first week of the season. Tuesday's win over the Clippers marked the first time Kerr's team has held an opponent to fewer than 80 points since 2016.
