For all that magic that Stephen Curry creates with the ball in his hands, for all the turmoil that Draymond Green creates with his hustle and his sound and his fury, for all the mismatches at both ends of the floor that are created every time that Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston come off the bench, these are Steve Kerr’s Warriors.
As a rookie head coach, he made it look so easy, like the duck gliding across the pond while his feet paddled furiously beneath the water in leading the Warriors to their first championship in four decades. Even while missing from the bench for the first 43 games of this season to recover from back surgery, he had his guiding hands on and his presence within this team that has positively transformed the game.
Excellence in team sports is not merely a gift, but a product of planning and execution with just the right dose of inspiration from the top and that’s why Kerr is NBA.com’s pick to be NBA Coach of the Year.
There are those that would foolishly suggest that the Warriors would have reached these lofty heights with Mark Jackson still at the controls. There are those that would naively say that Luke Walton proved over the first half of the 2015-16 season when he moved over one seat on the bench that the Warriors are like one of those self-driving cars that Google and Amazon are trying to get up and running on the highways.
The truth is that Walton’s success while the team ran out to a mind-boggling, record-breaking 24-0 and then 39-4 start is even more testament to the foundational principles that had been laid down by Kerr. As the Warriors zoomed out of the starting gate and began their pursuit of the 1996 Bulls’ all-time record of 72 wins, Walton was quite open about the fact that he kept in constant touch with Kerr, exchanging ideas, getting suggestions, at every step along the way. They spoke before and after every road games. They consulted when Kerr preferred to remain backstage at home games.
Walton deserves credit for executing the plan and keeping the Warriors on the path to continue playing with the same joy and enthusiasm and intensity as they dealt this season with the new experience of playing with the targets on their backs as the defending champs. But it was Kerr’s plan. The same one that taught all of those individual virtuoso artists to harness their talents to create something special together.
Remember, it was Kerr who took an offense that was rated 12th-best in the NBA under Jackson, sharpened it to a razor’s edge and made it No. 2 in the league a year ago while also prodding that defense into becoming the very best in the NBA. Now the Warriors have the No. 1 offense, No. 5 defense and until the hiccup of the past week have kept their competitive edge under the intense pressure of the spotlight that just keeps getting brighter.
Kerr has been able to balance the stated desire of his players to pursue the all-time record of 73 wins against the withering effects of physical and mental fatigue that inevitably comes with such a quest.
Give all proper credit to the Warriors staff of Walton and Ron Adams and the rest for keeping the ship sailing ahead when the skipper couldn’t be standing at the helm. But he’s the one that plotted the course and never took his hand off the tiller.
When Phil Jackson led the Bulls to their record-setting season, it was the only time the Hall of Famer was named Coach of the Year. Now two decades later, with the Warriors on the doorstep of becoming only the second team ever to win at least 70 games, it is Kerr’s time.
After finishing a close second to the Hawks’ Mike Budenholzer a year ago, Kerr will have no shortage of competition for the award:
Terry Stotts, Portland Trail Blazers: Talk about your bad summers. The Blazers coach sat and watched four-fifths of his starting lineup, 53 percent of his point total and 55 percent of his minutes played from a 51-31 in 2014-15 leave town as Portland went into rebuilding mode with the loss of LaMarcus Aldridge. But Stotts took out his hammer and went to work. After a 15-24 start, the Blazers are now 43-37 and have clinched a playoff berth.
Gregg Popovich, San Antonio Spurs: Face it, the voters could give Popovich the award every season and there would not be much reason to complain. The three-time former winner of the award incorporated newcomers LaMarcus Aldridge and David West onto the Spurs roster on the run and merely has them sitting with a franchise record 65 wins while flying (almost) under the Warriors’ radar.
Dwane Casey, Toronto Raptors: It seems that Casey comes into every season having to prove himself all over again, and then goes out and does just that. While those back-to-back first-round playoff losses stick in the minds of so many Toronto fans, Casey has pushed his team to 52 wins, which sets a new club record for the third year in a row.
Steve Clifford, Charlotte Hornets: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was scratched for the season after playing just seven games. Anchor Al Jefferson missed 25 of the Hornets’ first 66 games. But since the beginning of March they rank in the top 10 in the league in offensive and defensive efficiency and Clifford has Charlotte at 45-33 and solidly in the playoffs with the potential to cause trouble.
Rick Carlisle, Dallas Mavericks: This was a season and a team that could have imploded last July when free agent DeAndre Jordan changed his mind about moving to Dallas. But the dogged, relentless Carlisle has taken a collection of broken vintage parts with 37-year-old Dirk Nowitzki at the center of it all and kept the 40-38 Mavs in the playoff hunt from the opening week down to the very end.
***
Editor’s note: As the 2015-16 season winds down, NBA.com’s writers give their picks for the various end-of-season awards.
Below is our schedule of stories:
April 5: Executive of the Year
April 7: Coach of the Year
April 8: Kia Most Improved Player
April 9: Kia Sixth Man of the Year
April 10: Kia Rookie of the Year
April 11: Kia Defensive Player of the Year
April 12: Kia MVP
***
Fran Blinebury has covered the NBA since 1977. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.
