Why accountable Warriors coach Steve Kerr aims to have comeback year next season

SAN FRANCISCO – While the Warriors were careening about the corridors of mediocrity last season, coach Steve Kerr saw disappointment beneath the mounting injuries, the torrent of turnovers and mindless deviations from the game plan, all of which torched hope.Nothing bruised Kerr’s psyche more than what he saw in the mirror. Himself. A veteran coach, lavishly decorated, operating below his standard.Scouts around the league noticed it, and so did several internal observers. So, too, did Kerr.“I didn’t have a great year,” he conceded to NBC Sports Bay Area the other day on a “Dubs Talk” podcast interview. “I think coaches are similar to players. You have years that are better than others, you have years that are worse than others.”Call it a slump that also had breakthrough moments, one of which came in November after Kerr shouldered much of the blame after a home loss to Houston. Jimmy Butler III later stood in the locker room, pointed toward the white board – it was obscured by a cloth – and said the game plan had everything needed to win games was posted.“Don’t listen to Steve,” Butler said. “And he said, ‘This is on me? And he’s got to be better?’ Nah, it’s on these guys around this locker room.”It is a fact, however, that the Warriors rarely looked like a team capable of frightening the NBA elite. It’s a shared blame.Golden State finished the 2025 calendar year relatively healthy, but its 18-16 record told the truth about a team fighting itself. A team that in the first month went into Milwaukee and Indiana, both missing their best players and bound for the lottery, and walked out with losses that hit like an ice bag upside the head. The Warriors lost to Portland three times in a 51-day span, and they never won more than three consecutive games.The first and only four-game win streak came in mid-January, and the fourth victory was profoundly pyrrhic, a 23-point rout of the Miami Heat on Jan. 19 – the game in which Butler sustained a season-ending torn right ACL.When Stephen Curry went down 11 days later, Kerr and his staff spent the next nine weeks trying to find a way for their pony-heavy squad to run with the league’s thoroughbreds. No Butler and no Curry equaled no chance. Not even Red Almighty Auerbach or John Wizardly Wooden could have achieved success.Yet it was the eye test that was stunning from start to finish. The Warriors at their healthiest were ordinary. At their worst, losing to tanking franchises, they were unwatchable. Some of that is on the players, but the bulk of the responsibility for repetitive errors lands in the lap of Kerr and his staff.The most consistent of the fatal wounds was, of course, turnovers.Kerr at one point vowed not to use the “t” word. He was desperate, hoping a little reverse psychology would slow the trend as it did once before.“In the ’22 playoffs against Memphis, we were turning it over left and right,” Kerr recalled. “It was a comedy of errors – only it wasn’t that funny. We almost lost the series. But every single day I was talking about the turnovers, turnovers – before every game – it didn’t work. And the next series against Dallas, my staff told me just don’t even say anything. So, we didn’t mention one word about the turnovers. And we hardly turned it over. We were much better, so we were just trying that format again. “Unfortunately, it didn’t work as well this time.”After averaging 17.5 turnovers per game against the Grizzlies, the Warriors averaged 11.6 per game against the Mavericks in the Western Conference finals. The ploy was, this time around, a spectacular failure.In addition to the sloppy ballhandling, there were nights when players atop the scouting report got open looks in the first quarter. Nights when corner-3-ball specialists had too much space. All of which is why there were so many whispers implying the Warriors were not among the NBA’s better prepared teams.“We never found our identity,” Kerr said. “Even early in the year when we were healthy, we were giving games away at the end. I didn’t think my late-game execution stuff as a coach was great. Those are all valid points.“When you have a moment like this,” he added, “it gives you time to reflect. And it’s a challenge. ‘All right, I got to get better.’ I think that’s true for me and it’s true for our players, our organization. And that’s invigorating I’m excited.”The implication is that next season’s Warriors will have the same coach, but he’ll be blowing a bigger, louder whistle. The turnover latitude Kerr once afforded Draymond Green and Curry is a thing of the past.“Absolutely – it’s everybody,” he said. “We can’t approach this coming season like we’ve approached the last 11. We have to rethink responsibility. And that’s us as a staff. It’s the players themselves, individually and collectively. And those will be discussions that will happen this summer.”There is no award for “Comeback Coach of the Year,” but Kerr wants to embody the definition. He should know, however, there will be no comeback unless players do the same.Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast

Why accountable Warriors coach Steve Kerr aims to have comeback year next season

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