Abbie
Parr/Getty
Steve Kerr said the Golden State Warriors need to
"reset" and re-focus their priorities.
While Kerr said he doesn't focus on individual games
with his team, he said he sees larger trends that need
fixing.
At a time when the rest of the NBA seems to be falling
apart with infighting, the Warriors are cruising along, and it
seems as though Kerr is simply looking for ways to motivate his
team.
The NBA seems to be falling apart.
The
Cleveland Cavaliers are fighting and blaming Kevin Love, the
San Antonio
Spurs are "disconnected" from Kawhi Leonard, and the
Milwaukee
Bucks fired Jason Kidd, which "devastated" Giannis
Antetokounmpo.
And those are just three major storylines of the last week. The
Washington
Wizards had a team meeting that didn't solve anything, and
then were blown out by the Dallas Mavericks as Mavs point guard
J.J. Barea said nobody likes John Wall.
Damian Lillard had a meeting with Portland Trail Blazers owner
Paul Allen to ensure the team is focused on winning.
The NBA has had several
on-court altercations in the past two weeks, highlighted by
the
Houston Rockets confronting the Los Angeles Clippers in the
Clippers' locker room.
Elsewhere, teams like the Charlotte Hornets are considering
blowing it up and trading Kemba Walker, though team owner
Michael Jordan may not be fully on board.
In the midst of all of this, the Golden State Warriors say they
need to "reset."
The Warriors' drama is different from other teams. The Warriors
aren't perfect, but they're close to it. Teams with championship
aspirations often drag through the regular season as they await
the postseason when things really begin. But the
Warriors aren't even most championship teams. They're first in
offensive rating and fifth in defensive rating, and their net
rating — the total by which they outscore teams per 100
possessions — is still the best in the league.
But head coach Steve Kerr sees some problems with his team. When
the Warriors lost to the Rockets on Saturday, they turned the
ball over 19 times and sent the Rockets to the free throw line 29
times. That's sloppy, and the
Warriors have always battled sloppiness.
Yet Kerr's reaction to it tells you all you need to know about
the Warriors.
— Melissa Rohlin (@melissarohlin) January 22, 2018
Kerr said with this team, he doesn’t care about individual games. He cares about trends. And too many turnovers has been a trend recently.
So, Kerr told reporters, he sees a trend with his team and it's
time to "reset" and get them back on track.
"There are key points in the year where we have to hit the reset
button in terms of our priorities and now is one of those times,"
Kerr said. "This is an important week for us in a standpoint of
we need to take care of the ball, we need to be smart, make good
decisions. If we do that, we're really really hard to beat."
Kerr has echoed similar sentiments before. He said on "The Bill
Simmons Podcast" in December that he was expecting his team
go through ebbs and flows.
"It's just human nature. The motivation wanes a little bit, and
the edge, you lose your edge," Kerr said, adding that the team
doesn't have much internal drama.
"There's a malaise that has settled in," Kerr said. "It's a long
way off until the playoffs start and we just don't have that same
edge that we've had the last couple years. And I'm perfectly fine
with it because, like I said, it's human nature and we've got to
kind of in some ways pace ourselves and get to the end of the
year."
It's worth considering what that "malaise" is, though. Since
beginning the season 4-3, the Warriors have gone 35-7. Two weeks
ago they
outclassed their biggest rivals, the Cavaliers, who
appear to be falling apart and going through the exact type
of slog that Kerr described.
The Warriors can't get too comfortable, and Kerr knows that. The
Rockets do appear to be a potential threat to the Warriors, the
Spurs will always be around, and talented teams like the Oklahoma
City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves are jelling and starting
to improve.
But at a time when drama seems to be pervading through the
league, it's hardly noticeable that the league's clear-cut best
team is cruising right along, even if Kerr doesn't think so.
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