Steve Kerr ‘couldn’t imagine walking away from the Warriors.’ Here’s why

SAN FRANCISCO — It took Steve Kerr a week to come to the conclusion.

“I couldn’t imagine walking away from the Warriors,” Kerr said Friday from the top floor of the Warriors’ arena, overlooking a sweeping view of the city the coach couldn’t give up.

In his first public comments since signing a contract extension that will extend his tenure in Golden State for a 13th and 14th season, Kerr expressed excitement about continuing his partnership with Steph Curry, emphasized that he still has a vigor for coaching and acknowledged that some things will have to change next season.

All that was no sure thing following the Warriors’ ouster in the play-in tournament, Kerr explained. Who else but his wife, Margot, helped him see the forest through the trees.

“My wife said something, she said you might coach again someday, but you’ll never coach the Warriors again,” he said. “That was really meaningful to me because I love this team. I love our players. That struck me. … At that point, it was really: ‘What do you guys want to do.’”

Kerr met multiple times with general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. and owner Joe Lacob over the next two weeks. He looped in Curry and Draymond Green, too, but said that neither had “any impact or influence on whether I was going to be the coach.

“That’s a credit to them,” Kerr continued. “Our best player isn’t telling Mike or Joe what to do. He understands the repercussions of that if he were to go down that path … it usually doesn’t go well.”

The decision was up to Kerr and the front office with whom he touted a collaborative relationship that resulted in a process that “I don’t think actually happens in pro sports, honestly,” Kerr said.

“Where you have these kinds of conversations and genuinely, authentically try to figure out what’s the right thing, you know?”

Still, it was no foregone conclusion that Kerr would be back. Speaking after their elimination loss to the Suns, Kerr sounded like a coach ready to step away.

Dunleavy thought so, too.

“There were plenty of nights where I went to bed where I didn’t think he’d be back as coach,” Dunleavy said, but “it became clear as long as he wanted to do it, it made a ton of sense for him to be back.”

Dunleavy said he didn’t broach the subject with Kerr during the season — “not once.” When it came time for them to talk, one demand Dunleavy and Lacob made was for Kerr to sign on for more than another lame-duck season, like he did this past year.

“We needed a multiyear commitment, and Steve unequivocally gave us that,” Dunleavy said, adding that they “fully expect” Kerr to serve out the two-year contract, if not “hopefully more.”

“It’s not just a one-year swan song, ‘Last Dance’ thing,” the GM continued. “That is 100% not what this is about. Joe would not have been good with that.”

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Part of their discussions focused around shifting expectations, given the state of their roster. Curry and Green will be a year older, and they won’t have the reinforcements from Jimmy Butler or Moses Moody to begin the season as the two wings recover from injuries.

Lacob, with his insatiable appetite for success, wasn’t going to let them off so easily.

“We were talking about injuries and how this is the first time we can’t realistically just say, ‘Hey, let’s win a title next year,” Kerr recalled. “He just said, you know, ‘I’m the owner and I can’t help but just say, I expect to be in the playoffs every year and have a shot.”

One topic that Kerr was insistent didn’t come up in talks was his tendency to speak up on sociopolitical issues. It had been reported that Warriors brass hoped he would tone it down.

“That literally never came up,” he said. “That was not part of the conversation at all.”

Mostly, the conversations oriented around how to maximize the final years of Curry’s career and send out the core of their dynasty the right way while also setting a foundation for the future.

As Dunleavy said: “It’s gonna end for them. … It’s not gonna end for us. The Warriors are forever.”

Dunleavy described the Warriors’ 37-45 finish as “underwhelming” and a “disappointment” but chalked up their shortcoming to injuries — Curry also missed two months, in addition to the season-ending knee surgeries for Butler and Moody — rather than roster construction.

That said, there will be some stylistic changes. At the top of the list: taking better care of the basketball after the Warriors committed the third-most turnovers in the NBA.

“We can play however we want,” Dunleavy said. “Just don’t turn the ball over.”

Since putting pen to paper on his new deal, Kerr said he spent the past week reviewing each and every one of the Warriors’ turnovers. He acknowledged that he had room to improve, too.

“I know I have to be better,” Kerr said. “I didn’t have a great coaching year this year. I know there are a lot of things I can do better.”

The fact that Kerr toasted an extension that reportedly maintains his status as the league’s highest-compensated coach by watching film should tell you exactly where his head is at.

“If I were tired and burned out, I would not be here,” he said. “I love my job.”

And now, he will get to do it for another two years.

“The idea is let’s see how good we can be,” Kerr said. “We think we can still be good. We’ve got to get some guys back from injuries; we’ve got to make some moves; I’ve got to do some things.

“But let’s run it back. Let’s see how good we can be. I think we’re all really excited about that.”

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