With Steve Kerr Returning, It's Time For Warriors To Get To Work This Offseason

With Steve Kerr returning, it's time for Warriors to get to work this offseason originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Now that the most important part of the Warriors’ offseason has been taken care of, the real work begins. 

Steve Kerr said he’d take a week or two after the Warriors’ season ended in the NBA play-in tournament to sit down with team owner Joe Lacob and general manager Mike Dunleavy to talk about his future and their idea of what’s next for the team. The two sides first met 10 days after the Warriors’ season-ending loss to the Phoenix Suns before continuing talks one week later. A total of 22 days have passed since Kerr sat at the podium and had the attention of everybody in a tiny room in a road arena. 

He needed time, and he found his answer. 

Kerr will continue his run with the Warriors after reportedly agreeing to a new two-year contract that will keep him as the NBA’s highest-paid coach. As he knew going into his conversations, the Warriors under Kerr are about to look different. Kerr’s core principles of the game aren’t changing, but they will have to diversify, and a new era of Warriors basketball has its wheels in motion during a last dance that hopes to have a few encore songs. 

Let’s be honest: The Warriors are old, unathletic and still small, creating a combination that never has worked on any basketball court. Simultaneously, their whole operation on the court centers around one of their older and smaller players. 

Steph Curry will turn 39 years old next season after a year in which he missed 39 games mostly due to a lingering bout with runner’s knee. In the 43 regular-season games Curry did play, he still scored at a historic rate, averaging 26.6 points while shooting 39.3 percent on 11.3 3-point attempts per game. His 35-point performance to beat the LA Clippers in the Warriors’ first play-in tournament game created even more memories that will last a lifetime for a game that technically doesn’t count towards his stats. 

Asking him to replicate that kind of game two days later was unrealistic and another example of the reality the Warriors are in when Curry only mustered 17 points on 4-of-16 shooting in a 15-point loss. 

“Oh, Steph’s still got it,” Kerr said in Phoenix. “You watched the other night, he can still do it. But it just gets more difficult as you get older, obviously. He plays a different game than a lot of older players, more experienced players around the league.”

The 3-point boom that Curry created years ago isn’t what makes his play style so unique. He still runs all over the floor, this way and that way, like a child escaping a parent trying to take something dangerous away from them. He still flies off screens and sets them too. And defenses continue to grab and pull at him with a more physical strategy than anybody else. 

When the Warriors lost in the second round of the playoffs after Curry went down from a strained hamstring a year ago, Kerr scoffed at a question on his offensive system. There didn’t appear to be any wiggle room. 

“Any talk of do we need to change our offensive system, to me is kind of laughable,” Kerr said after exit interviews last season. “What does that mean? So let’s not run Steph off screens? Let’s not put Steph in pick-and-roll? I’m not even sure how to respond to that honestly.” 

Strategic talks between Kerr, Dunleavy and Lacob on the offense, roster construction and coaching staff were a must. Almost everybody on the coaching staff had their contracts tied to Kerr’s, leaving their futures in question as well.

Who will be Curry’s second star to start the season is the next question. Can anybody jump into Jimmy Butler’s Robin costume for the first few months of the season if the Warriors keep him and his $56.8 million contract on the roster? 

Butler is the second-oldest player in NBA history to have a torn ACL. The moment he grabbed his knee, the Warriors’ season was over. They knew it. They also saw the league continue to pass them in the months that followed. 

“When you look at the West, when you look at the rest of the league, teams are loaded,” Kerr said. “There’s so much talent and so much skill.” 

There’s no set prediction of when Butler will return and what kind of player he’ll be. Nobody can say for sure if Moses Moody will play at all next season after his horrible torn patellar tendon in late March. The Warriors have just four players under contract next season who aren’t hurt. 

At 36 years old, Draymond Green rounds out the Warriors’ Big Three. He played the most between himself, Curry and Butler this season. He also didn’t fit at all with Butler offensively, has a $27.6 million player option for next season and can’t help but talk in a microphone and put himself in hot water while he watches the playoffs instead of being part of them. 

Injuries and inconsistencies put Kerr in a tough spot during a season where he trotted out 43 different starting lineups. Healthy or not, balance wasn’t part of the Warriors’ equation. Over 41 percent of their total points came from 3-pointers in a season where they ranked 20th in 3-point percentage and dead last in dunks.

Nothing came easy.

The consensus within the Warriors and outside of Chase Center is that Kerr remains the right coach to lead this team. Plus, the most important voice in the room, Curry, wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Steve still has his fastball,” one league source said. 

“Remember that game in Phoenix after the trade deadline? That shows it,” another league source said. 

Players continued to compete at a championship level as a No. 10 seed for Kerr this season. Do all nine teams ahead of the Warriors in the West have a brighter present and future? It’s hard to argue against that, just like it’s always hard to argue against the power of Curry. 

Bringing back Kerr was the biggest and most important box for the Warriors to check and not look back at. Now that they can turn their attention to focusing forward, it’s time to get to work.

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