Kerr took a 51 win team and turned it into a 67 win team. All the while making significant coaching moves to maximize the talent currently on the team (starting Barnes over Iggy, starting Draymond, etc.). Then he took that 67 win team and turned it into a 73 win team the following year. I think you're selling him short. The difference between a 51 win team and a 67 win team (let alone 73) is more than the difference between say a 33 win team and a 50 win team.
Kerr was absent half the year...the players are responsible for that record...you think Luke Walton's coaching had anything to do with it...its gonna be bad next year for him in LA...everyone is going to see he doesn't belong as a head coach....
I think you missed the part where he said that Kerr made significant coaching moves to maximize the talent. The Warriors wouldn't be the well oiled machine that they are today if Kerr hadn't put the pieces in the right places last year. He took a good team with the same pieces and he made them great. People are looking at what Walton did and using it as a reason not to give Kerr credit. It's not like Walton started instilling his own concepts and theories. He was running the Kerr playbook. Kerr built the car and Walton was just driving it.
So, you're saying that Chad Knaus was responsible for all those NASCAR titles, and Jimmy Johnson was just an ancillary piece?
Hey, you brought the automotive analogy; I just continued it to its logical conclusion. And to answer your question: no, I wouldn't expect you to be that well-rounded.
If you want to start talking real racing - MotoGP, then we can conversate. What's there to say about a bunch of dudes making left turns? Oh- and your continuation was invalid because I was talking about two coaches. Yours would have applied if I had said that Kerr built the car and Curry was only driving it.
See Kerr already had all the pieces, it's not that hard to put them in the right place, once you already have them, but they were laid out practically in front of him...a championship level team...
We see them as a championship level team right now.... after they won a title and broke the record for wins. How many people saw them as a championship team two years ago? How many people said that Curry would be the MVP two years running? Nobody on the SI panel had them even in the Finals. Nobody had Curry as the MVP. http://www.si.com/nba/2014/10/27/nba-crystal-ball-predictions-2014-15-finals-mvp-awards-preview On ESPN, one dude had GSW as the champs. ONE. http://espn.go.com/nba/notebook/_/page/nba1415/2014-15-nba-champion-predictions CBS didn't have anyone picking GSW. Nobody picked Curry as MVP. http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-basketball/24771202/-15-nba-expert-predictions Yahoo had them as the 5th best team in the west (behind the Blazers.) http://sports.yahoo.com/news/2014-2015-nba-season-predictions-132618438.html So it's really easy to say that they were this great team, because hindsight is 20/20. But in reality, nobody thought they'd ever be this good at the start of the 2014-2015 season.
Yeah, I'd like to see the same with Phil Jackson and Greg Popovich. It would be interesting. But neither of them needs to do that for us to understand how great they've been as coaches. Kerr has clearly done a fantastic job maximizing a roster that no one considered amazing prior to him. People these days love to say, "Oh, sure, he was handed the greatest player and roster in the league...big deal that he's winning"...were you calling Curry the greatest player in the league in 2014? Were you saying that the Warriors had a historically great collection of talent in 2014? I doubt it, since no one else was. It's easy after the fact to say that the players were amazing. That kind of a posteriori logic does no heavy lifting in attempting to separate coaching from player ability. We could do exactly the same thing with Stotts: "Big deal that he coached the Blazers to 44 wins with the second-best backcourt in the game and decent depth." That, like your contention about Kerr, ignores that the coach has something to do with how those players performed...no one looked at the Blazers' roster before this season and saw 44 wins, so Stotts gets a lot of credit for how they've performed. Similarly, no one looked at the Warriors' roster prior to Kerr and saw 67 wins (or 73), so Kerr gets a lot of credit for how they've performed. I remember contributing to a "Rank the Western Conference teams" thread on this forum going into the 2014-15 season and putting the Warriors at #5, and I was on the high end. I think some people even questioned me putting the Warriors that high. That was the "amazing roster" that runs itself? (The answer is: Yes, it turns out it had a lot of talent, but only when coached to play together optimally...Draymond Green probably stands out as the most obvious example of emerging when given the proper direction.)
People have their opinions, and are also very capable of critical thinking. If anyone in this forum thought for one second that Portland wouldn't bring Coach back, you may need to fix your thought process.
I've complained about his defense adjustments during his tenure, but he's earned the right to coach this team for the next few seasons. I hope they can deliver Stotts the right pieces to take it to the next level.
