The Golden State Warriors are without one of their most important members, head coach Steve Kerr, who's dealing with complications stemming hisback surgery from the summer of 2015.
Although the Warriors have acquitted themselves nicely without Kerr, going 4-0 under acting head coach Mike Brown, the team would love to have their coach back this postseason. On Friday, Golden State general manager Bob Myers revealed where Kerr is in his recovery and how the Warriors are approaching the next month or so.
Via Tim Kawakami of the Mercury News:
-Q: So have you prepared yourself or prepared your team for the idea that Mike will be your coach through the rest of this postseason?
-MYERS: We dont know. Were kind of going series by series on that. So that question we havent really hit head on or directly. We understand thats a possibility, but as far as thinking like that, we havent gotten there.
Myers insisted Kerr could return still this postseason, but that the Warriors shouldn't rely on his coming back:
-MYERS: I said this to the teamwe all have to kind of decide how process that part ourselves.
Because he still couldI dont want to mislead peoplebut the possibility of him coming back still exists.
But that is different than relying on it. You can have that optimism, we all can have that hope. But reliance on it, I think, is something nobodys doing at this point. Nor should they.
Over the past two seasons, the Warriors are 43-4 without Kerr, including their 39-4 run to start the 2015-16 season under Luke Walton. That's probably just a coincidence, yet there is one compelling difference for Golden State when Kerr isn't on the bench: Draymond Green goes from being a 30 percent 3-point shooter to a deadeye sniper who knocks down triples like he's Stephen Curry.
The sample size is far too small to be conclusive. Still, it's an interesting trend to watch out for as the Warriors continue to roll through the playoffs.
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