Steve Kerr will remain the head coach of the Golden State Warriors after signing a two-year extension with the team. That development would apparently be a surprise to Kerr a few weeks ago.
The Warriors coach told ESPN’s Wright Thompson he was “95 percent” certain about retiring ahead of his team’s play-in tournament game against the Los Angeles Clippers on April 15, reportedly saying “I think it’s over” the day before the game.
Thompson breaks down Kerr’s journey to that point in great detail, but a day later, Kerr had apparently changed his mind after the Warriors’ season-saving 126-121 win over the Clippers:
An assistant with a stat sheet said they’d led for only four minutes and six seconds. Everyone laughed and tried to stay in the moment. Steve looked over at me and spoke quietly, almost a whisper.
“I’m not leaving,” he said.
The Warriors would go on to lose to the Phoenix Suns in the West’s final play-in game, ending their season outside the playoffs for the second time in three years. Kerr received widespread notice after cameras caught him telling Stephen Curry and Draymon Green ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen next” as the game ended.
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While Kerr had apparently decided he wanted to stay by that point, his contract with the Warriors was expiring. He acknowledged the possibility the Warriors move on from him after the game, in an offseason where major change is clearly needed. Instead, the Warriors kept him and gave him a contract that will reportedly see him remain the highest-paid coach in the NBA.
It remains unclear when the 60-year-old Kerr will actually retire. There was a revealing conversation on that front, though, as he and Thompson discussed former San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who officially stepped down last year after a debilitating stroke:
“For the past few years, Kerr has watched his mentor, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, struggle through this same decision. Pop once called Steve to tell him he’d finally decided to retire. Steve congratulated him on a Hall of Fame career. A week later Pop signed an extension with San Antonio. Popovich finally officially quit six weeks before our lunch, six months after a stroke diminished him physically. People who loved him had to show him the door, as gently as possible. That hurt Steve. He respects Popovich so much. He loved playing for him and coaching with him. He once told Gregg he was the finest man he’d ever known and thanked him for all he’d done for him. Pop smiled and said his feet were made of clay like everyone else’s. Steve didn’t believe it then. Now he does.
“I realized he couldn’t do it,” Kerr said. “He couldn’t walk away.”
When asked how he would avoid a similar fate, Kerr apparently wasn’t sure:
“How am I gonna feel exactly a year from now? Maybe two years from now? Because the job itself is so addictive. … You wanna trust yourself but also be suspicious of your own motives. You don’t want to walk away too early but you don’t want to walk away too late. And you worry about what your life is gonna feel like …
Whenever he does retire, he will likely be coaching a team significantly different from the one he helmed this season. The Warriors have been widely rumored to be gearing up for a superstar acquisition to maximize Curry’s final years with the team, a process which could see Draymond Green leave the organization.