I've been wondering that for awhile.
Despite Jackson's incredible record of regular season wins and championships, one of the main knocks on him was that he was blessed with a Michael Jordan, and then inherited a team of Superstars in LA. I always thought Jackson's biggest attribute was his ability to be a master psychologist and get those big egos to play together (and that's nothing to be discounted).
As for Kerr, I really wonder if he inherited a team that was say, 41-41, could he make that team 30% better (which I think would be a fair assessment of his coaching ability). I'll never get a true answer to that question in the Bay Area (where I live) because there are too many biased Warriors fans. Admittedly I'm indifferent to all teams (not into fandom, I'm simply a gambler). I just know when I flipped on the game last night and saw the Warriors up by 20+ points and watched their lead evaporate, I thought to myself, I've seen this song and dance before (and most recently it happened on Christmas day). It just seems like Kerr's MO is to get a big lead, put in the scrubs, have the lead evaporate, and then the starters are out of sync when they get back in and they have to scratch and claw at the end. And it also seems like all the 2nd string does is stand around in spectator mode, throw the ball around the perimeter, and then take a terrible shot in the final seconds of the 24 second clock. There just seems to be a real drop off when Curry gets pulled from the game and there's really not a leader on the floor. Thompson seems to be completely ineffective without Curry in the lineup (I'd love to see some numbers on him without Curry on the floor). I really wonder how good he would be on another team if he became "the man". And then, of course, you get into games like the Cleveland games, when you can't quite get enough going to make that comeback and then it's "let's blame the refs". Maybe the refs wouldn't come into play if Kerr switched up his strategy a bit and either coached up his backups more, or took a different strategy in the 4th quarter. Clearly, time will tell Kerr's legacy, but I'm not going to be surprised if this team doesn't go all the way this year (as they have already been anointed the crown by Vegas and the Bay Area crowd).
And btw, they do have a losing record against the spread this year.
Despite Jackson's incredible record of regular season wins and championships, one of the main knocks on him was that he was blessed with a Michael Jordan, and then inherited a team of Superstars in LA. I always thought Jackson's biggest attribute was his ability to be a master psychologist and get those big egos to play together (and that's nothing to be discounted).
As for Kerr, I really wonder if he inherited a team that was say, 41-41, could he make that team 30% better (which I think would be a fair assessment of his coaching ability). I'll never get a true answer to that question in the Bay Area (where I live) because there are too many biased Warriors fans. Admittedly I'm indifferent to all teams (not into fandom, I'm simply a gambler). I just know when I flipped on the game last night and saw the Warriors up by 20+ points and watched their lead evaporate, I thought to myself, I've seen this song and dance before (and most recently it happened on Christmas day). It just seems like Kerr's MO is to get a big lead, put in the scrubs, have the lead evaporate, and then the starters are out of sync when they get back in and they have to scratch and claw at the end. And it also seems like all the 2nd string does is stand around in spectator mode, throw the ball around the perimeter, and then take a terrible shot in the final seconds of the 24 second clock. There just seems to be a real drop off when Curry gets pulled from the game and there's really not a leader on the floor. Thompson seems to be completely ineffective without Curry in the lineup (I'd love to see some numbers on him without Curry on the floor). I really wonder how good he would be on another team if he became "the man". And then, of course, you get into games like the Cleveland games, when you can't quite get enough going to make that comeback and then it's "let's blame the refs". Maybe the refs wouldn't come into play if Kerr switched up his strategy a bit and either coached up his backups more, or took a different strategy in the 4th quarter. Clearly, time will tell Kerr's legacy, but I'm not going to be surprised if this team doesn't go all the way this year (as they have already been anointed the crown by Vegas and the Bay Area crowd).
And btw, they do have a losing record against the spread this year.
