Steve Kerr Underwent Spinal Cord Leak Procedure for Back Injury

Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob told Bloomberg Radio that head coach Steve Kerr remains out indefinitely after undergoing a spinal cord leak procedure on his back, according to the Associated Press (via ESPN).

Anthony Slater of the Mercury News shared Lacob's comments on the matter:

"It’s very unfortunate what’s happening here. He had a back surgery. Relatively common procedure almost two years ago now. And had what is really a relatively uncommon thing happen, which is the dura around the spinal cord got nicked. And you wind up having a spinal cord leak. And ultimately headaches and other symptoms. Bad headaches. Migraines. Unfortunately, usually they patch that with a blood patch and it’s over, either in a week or month. Whatever. And in his case for whatever reason they just haven’t been able to solve that problem. Hopefully it was solved yesterday, he had another procedure. It’s gone on for nearly two years. Very unusual, I believe. I have a medical background so I know a little bit about this. I’ve never really heard of many people having this problem for this long. We feel really bad for him, the players, everybody understands it. We just have to be in his court here and support whatever it takes for him to get back and I’m sure they will eventually solve it. Hopefully sooner rather than later and hopefully we’ll have him coaching on the court sooner rather than later."

Per that AP report, Kerr did not travel with the team to Utah ahead of Saturday night's Game 3 matchup against the Jazz. The Warriors won that contest, 102-91, behind Kevin Durant's 38 points and 13 rebounds.

Assistant coach Mike Brown has been operating as the acting head coach since Game 3 of Golden State's first-round series against the Portland Trail Blazers.

After having back surgery two years ago, Kerr suffered complications last year, which caused him to miss Golden State's first 43 games. Ramona Shelburne of ESPN reported on Friday that Kerr would be seeing a specialist at Duke University for his latest bout of complications and that it was "very unlikely" he would return to the bench during the Utah series.