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Transcript
00:00It is time. He is here ready to talk to Coach Kerr out to the River Islands guest line. We go
00:05It's presented by great clips in sports success is about team effort and the same is true for your hair great clips
00:12It's gonna be great all-star break done ready to get back to action coach. How are you?
00:18I'm doing great fellas. How are you guys? We're doing great, man. It's good to hear your voice
00:22What Gore what golf course were you on when Draymond Green started throwing national TV haymakers all over the place?
00:30Well, I was down in San Diego and I didn't watch any of it
00:33I didn't hear about all that until a couple days later because I was doing my best to get away from it all but
00:40Yeah, all good. Good. Good to be rested and refreshed and I'm ready to get back at it
00:46Yeah, what was your favorite? Was it was it that you're gonna win a title?
00:50Was it that he's been offered your job? Was it?
00:54Which one was your favorite Steve?
00:57All of the above all of the above, yeah
01:02There is a he's one-of-a-kind for sure and I know it's gonna speak his mind
01:08you know, he's
01:10What I love about him is he means that he means what he says and he genuinely believes we can
01:15We can do this and we need that kind of belief frankly
01:19And I think I think this trade for Jimmy has kind of given us a new found sense of confidence
01:26and belief and
01:28And dream on is sort of speaking on that and and you know, I'm trying to trying to light our fire
01:34So I love it. Um, just since we're here. What kind of coach do you think Draymond Green would make?
01:42We're not really going there are we fellas? Well, I mean he went there so like, you know, it feels like we gotta go there
01:49Well, I can tell you this he is one of the sharpest basketball minds I've ever been around
01:56There's no doubt about that. And he is
01:59He knows the game as well as anybody. It's amazing to watch him
02:04Play and and you know go through practice go through games talk to his teammates, you know, tell me what he's seeing out there
02:12He's he's a brilliant basketball mind and knows the game as well as anybody I've ever been around
02:17Into that end. It's been just a brief time with Jimmy Butler four games since he's been on the team
02:23But how has that interaction been between Jimmy Butler a strong personality and Draymond Green coach on the floor?
02:30Well, it's been great. Those guys are really enjoying playing together and collaborating and
02:36You know when they're on the floor together, they you can see them working in tandem
02:41especially at the defensive end and so
02:43It's fun as a coach to be able to have a couple guys like that who can can really solve a lot of problems for
02:49You when when you have breakdowns
02:51Hey coach, how did Jonathan coming to look at practice the last couple of days and where does your optimism sit?
02:58You look good, but but he hasn't scrimmaged yet
03:01so he's he's still a ways off, but it was great to have him back out on the court with the guys and
03:07He's obviously a phenomenal athlete and you know keeps himself in great shape so
03:14now it's a matter of getting rhythm and
03:18progressing each day and
03:20hopefully getting to the point where
03:23you know, he can he can scrimmage and really, you know, really put it together for
03:29For a good stretch of days where he'll get cleared to play. We found your answer yesterday
03:34Really interesting on a few levels when you were talking about
03:38Jimmy Butler and and Jonathan coming of fitting together on on the floor
03:43How how big of a puzzle do you consider that?
03:48Well, it's it's gonna be fun to watch them together because you know you to have two
03:56Big wings like that who can switch and guard multiple positions and get downhill get fouled
04:03There's a lot to like about it and obviously, you know, the concern would be spacing
04:08You know, especially because they've got to play, you know with a five man
04:14Neither one of them can play five. So they have to be the three and the four together, which means
04:20You know, we got if we got to figure out what what we're doing offensively
04:25You know, we can put Quinton post out there and space the floor and that would open up some driving lanes for those two
04:32But you know, we want to put dream on with them, you know, that's that's our three best
04:39Probably, you know athlete defenders, you know on the on the interior and
04:44You can imagine them switching everything and and you know staying in front of people and that could be great for our defense
04:51But we'd have to make sure we could survive that way
04:54offensively and in this modern era of
04:58Three-point shooting and also survive it in terms of longevity because Draymond playing the five seems to be fairly
05:04Taxing on his aging body how much of that comes into the calculus when you're deciding how much to play Draymond at five
05:13Well, it's a lot easier with 27 games left
05:17To commit to dream on at the five than it is, you know with a full season ahead of you. So I think now
05:24Where we are in the season
05:27You know where we are in the standings
05:30But I have no reservations in terms of playing dream on at the five to start games and they'll still see time at the four
05:39During the game and so it's not it's not going to be his full 30 minutes playing at the five
05:43But I'm confident that you know for these last couple of months
05:48He can he can play plenty of five for it coach Steve Kerr with us Willard and dibs 95-7 the game to that end coach
05:54You're talking about the 27 games left and the urgency
05:58How do you sort of approach the whole load management and back-to-back situation because of that as well?
06:06Well and everything
06:09That we decide is a collaboration with our performance team and and it's all going to depend on you know
06:16from one night to the next how guys are feeling and
06:20Obviously, they all want to play and you know, they saw last week
06:24We have the back-to-back in Dallas and in Houston and you know
06:28That's that was tough back-to-back given that we didn't start our game in Dallas till 845
06:33By the time we got to Houston was about 3 a.m. So
06:37those guys played both those games and held up well, obviously it helped to have the break behind them, but
06:43you know, it's it's now it's just
06:47It's a matter of getting through the season and as healthy a manner as possible and navigating what that means
06:54We just had Bob Fitzgerald on and he was railing against that back-to-back and how patently unfair it was
07:01and I wonder if you or
07:03Anybody in the organization has a chance to give input to the league before the schedule comes out as it pertains to you know
07:09Travel grouping cities or anything else that comes with the schedule
07:14Well, the league always sends us the schedule and they send every team the schedule, you know before they
07:20Officially put it out and they ask us to look at it and
07:24and offer any
07:26Any feedback, you know any complaints and so they're pretty good about that
07:32The problem is is that they can't answer to everybody
07:36So I also am not sure if that TV schedule is is made
07:41You know at that time in August or if that if that's done a little bit later
07:46My gut is you know, when we saw this back in August, we didn't see an 845 start
07:52So normally a Dallas Houston back-to-back is just fine
07:55It's a short flight, but I do think there should be a 24-hour rule in place in the league right now
08:02It's 22 hours, you know, you're you can play back-to-back games
08:07As long as there's 22 hours and I think it should in between I think it should be 24 and I don't think the league
08:13Should allow
08:14Situations like that. That's interesting. Yeah, Steve Kerr with us
08:18Coach have have you felt like you have a little bit more of a handle on the rotation?
08:24I know it's only been four games with Jimmy, but the roster thins out a little bit. We've talked about that so much
08:31Do you feel like you have a sort of a clearer view of what you're going to be doing night tonight?
08:37well, yeah, at least until
08:39JK comes back, but you know for the time being assuming everyone's healthy. I have a decent feel for it
08:45we've obviously gone from
08:48You know a really deep team to one that's a little more top-heavy
08:53You know making a four for one trade. We'll we'll do that
08:56So I imagine, you know guys like BP and Moses will be playing more minutes than before the trade
09:03And
09:05We'll try to limit stuff and dream on and Jimmy's minutes as best we can but
09:10We're more more than likely going to intervene on you know, five five or six guys
09:16Rather than nine or ten like we were before the trade coach
09:20You know, your fans are loving minutes for Moses Moody. We talked about it every single season
09:25So what but what is JK's return mean for Moses's move Moses's minutes likely?
09:32Well, we'll see I mean I love what Moses is doing
09:37I like his shooting, you know next to stuff and and and and dream on and Jimmy
09:42I mean that that he makes a lot of sense in that role
09:46You know JK and and Moses can play together
09:50So we can get them out there together at times
09:54We'll just have to wait and see how it plays out once once JK gets back
09:58Have you thought about
10:00Jonathan being back in the starting lineup or coming off the bench
10:03Is that something that you've already decided on and a conversation you need to have or is it kind of still in the wait-and-see mode?
10:10no, it's in wait-and-see mode because
10:13you just you don't want to make these decisions before you have to and so
10:19You know JK is not going to be back. You know this week for sure. So
10:25whenever he's back, hopefully next week sometime, but
10:28We don't know yet
10:29But when that happens, then I'll see who who we have available because somebody else might might be hurt might be out
10:36We've got to make a completely different decision. So there's no point in going down that road right now
10:42Coach have you watched any of the Court of Gold documentary? I
10:46Have not but I'm about to watch the four nations and I am fired up
10:50I'm not even a hockey guy, but I'm excited to watch it. Yeah. Yeah, this is pretty good
10:54But I tell you what, I don't know if you know this people are really buzzing
10:59About a few of the different angles with the Court of Gold thing dibs and I have started watching it at least
11:05But but first and foremost
11:08What was it like to have just those cameras and whatnot following you around through that experience?
11:14Well, they did a great job
11:16You know USA basketball
11:20You know came to me when we got to Las Vegas
11:25You know explained
11:27About this documentary and that there were going to be a group of teams
11:31With cameras following them around and look we you know, if you're on these teams you want documentation
11:38You know, you want to be able to show this to your family years later and look back on it years later
11:45So I think we were all
11:48very very happy with
11:50They're giving giving these guys access because we knew they were going to turn it into something special and
11:56they did a really good job of
11:58Kind of remaining anonymous, you know hanging out in the back of the room and not bothering anybody and and you get used to it
12:05Pretty quickly when you're going through that
12:07Yeah
12:08one thing I saw in episode one was you coaching up Anthony Edwards and
12:12Praising him for how physical he is and how he should get in there and he should be a better rebound and it made me
12:17Wonder how it would be for you to go in there and coach all these other
12:22Superstars and try to coach him up not necessarily hard
12:26But you're telling some of the best professional basketball players in the world what they need to do better. Was that a challenge for you?
12:35No, I think
12:37That's great about USA basketball is that there's there's an automatic respect amongst the group
12:43Because you've got a group of people who have achieved an awful lot you got the greatest players on earth
12:49You got a great coaching staff guys who are respected around the league Spoh and and Ty Lou are just amazing mark few
12:57you know the player guys like Anthony Edwards, you know, they know that I've
13:03coached in the finals and you know been at the top of the NBA both as a player and a coach and then so they
13:09they respect that and I think
13:11It's a really cool process because it's it's six weeks and you're kind of brand new to each other
13:17but you also don't have to go through the marathon of nine months where there's all kinds of stuff that happens and
13:24You know potential drama and just ups and downs six weeks is quick
13:29And so it's it's kind of a honeymoon period and then it's over and so there's a there's an inherent respect
13:36But also an ease to it because it's this is a almost a summer
13:42You know summer project and you're just together and it's it's fun and it's exciting and then before you know it it ends
13:48So it's everyone really embraces that every every single person who's there players coaches
13:53We all embrace it and that makes it really easy to work together speaking of embrace
13:58There's a moment that everyone is seeing on social media right now, which is you embracing Steph Curry after
14:06That gold medal shot and I want to play for everybody what that sounded like. This is from Netflix
14:12This is this is you talking to Steph right after
14:17winning the gold
14:27The finest human being I've ever met in my life
14:30Can can you just can you take us through that moment when the two of you got to each other?
14:36Well, it's pretty special to to see him have that moment
14:42You know two years after winning his last championship
14:46You know, he he was dying to be back in the mix again and for him to have that moment in front of the world
14:54amongst the greatest players on earth and for him to stand out and and
14:59Make those four threes in the last two minutes. It was just vintage step. I mean the way he
15:05Rises to the occasion
15:09It never ceases to amaze me even though I see it over and over again
15:14But my comments were real. I mean he the reason I think he's the finest human being I've ever been around
15:21I just don't think there's ever been this combination of
15:25talent and humility and
15:28perspective and
15:30Awareness, it's just this incredible
15:33mixture
15:34That makes stuff who he is
15:36That I think attracts, you know all sports fans to him
15:41They see these these qualities and those things don't often come together
15:46You know to have that kind of swagger on the floor and be that humble genuinely humble
15:52It's incredible and what Steph has done with his life to impact others
15:58They being aware of his power and yet
16:03Using it in such a beautiful
16:06authentic
16:07Humble way to help others
16:10He's remarkable. So yeah, I meant every word I said, you know, I'm looking to him after that game
16:15Yeah, including the curse words, which I didn't know that you had that much profanity in your game coach
16:20Probably too much. I I hope my mom doesn't have Netflix. Yeah boy
16:25I mean if the emotion was real and just thinking about the Golden Dagger
16:30shot itself and you're righty it the four threes and
16:33Mark and I were talking earlier in the week and I actually went through the final six minutes that game and that thing was slipping
16:38Away now a couple of turnovers and and a foul and no answer for yabba saleh
16:43But the Golden Dagger shot coach. Is that the greatest shot in the history of basketball or that hyperbole?
16:50Well
16:52It's up there
16:53I mean, you know, the fact is I think we were up six when he made the last one
16:57So, you know, it was a dagger, but it wasn't like a buzzer beater
17:02But you know
17:02I think if you're gonna if you're gonna talk about the greatest shots of all time, I think I think they have to be
17:09buzzer beaters that
17:11You know that win a game not not advance a lead from six to nine
17:16So I wouldn't put it there, but it is amongst the greatest shots
17:20I've ever seen maybe you in the NBA Finals with Chicago better than Steph Curry in the Olympics
17:26Let's not get carried away. I think the best I think the best shot I've ever seen. Honestly, it's Michael Jordan
17:32I was not there, but it was a year or two before I got to Cleveland
17:39When he hit the shot that beat the Cavs over Craigy low
17:43You know series on the line down one I
17:47Think that was the greatest shot. I've ever seen. We will ask though. How you compare winning a gold medal to winning an NBA championship
17:56Yeah, it's a great question
18:00There you know all all that stuff is amazing. I mean, it's hard to compare. It's just that they're you know winning a title
18:08Whether it's whether it's an NBA championship or or a gold medal
18:13There's just no feeling like it. It's just a
18:16different experience though
18:18the Olympics are very different than than the NBA and
18:25So I don't know. It's just different. I wouldn't I wouldn't want to compare the next day
18:29Yeah, there is I mean
18:30It's a tough comparison where like you said six weeks together as opposed to the NBA run
18:36Which is a two-month grind from April to June just to try to make it happen
18:40So you come out of the break and everyone should be fairly well rested
18:45How do you get all back together, and I know you've got a couple practices
18:48But how do you gear up for this final push which hopefully will lead to an elongated April May in June?
18:56Yeah, we're excited. We had an optional practice last night for the guys who were back in town
19:01But I wanted the older guys, especially Steph and Draymond and Moses the guys who were you know who participated in the weekend?
19:10Here in San Francisco to be able to get away a little bit so the whole team practiced this morning
19:16Typical post all-star break practice very ragged just like everyone that I've ever been associated with as a player and a coach
19:25And then you get back to work, so we were we're heading to Sacramento tonight and now
19:30Shoot around tomorrow, and we'll be ready to roll tomorrow night speaking of all-star weekend
19:34You have a thought everybody's weighing in on what they could do should do did do all of that stuff
19:40What would you like to see all-star weekend do I?
19:44Think I'd like to see USA versus the world and you know I guess what I'm watching the hockey game tonight
19:52the four nations game and
19:54You know you can see how much it matters to the players
19:58Involved and
20:00Maybe just maybe if if we did USA versus the world at the all-star game
20:07Players would start playing hard again
20:09you know I think back in the day the all-star game was
20:14More entertaining because there was there was actual competition. You know guys. I mean it wasn't game seven of the finals
20:21intensity, but you can tell it mattered and guys played and
20:25The problem for the last 15 years or so is that you know just nobody really wants to
20:31to try and
20:33So maybe if they did USA versus the world
20:36Maybe guys would compete and that's ultimately what people want to see they want to see competition love it
20:42Love it great stuff all right coach here. We go Kings tomorrow night and dear and Fox isn't on the team anymore
20:48So this one should be easy
20:50Yeah, sure
20:54We know we don't want a handful and
20:57There there's there's still a damn good team. They beat us
21:00You know last about three weeks ago where we had a I think a 20-point lead or 18-point lead
21:06And they came back and got us so we know what we have to do
21:09we got to take care of the ball and
21:11We can't we can't turn it over and let them get out in transition well coach enjoy the hockey your dogs ready for it, too and
21:19Apparently yes, they trip up to Sacramento and and thank you as always we'll talk to you next week
21:25Sound good alright guys. Thanks a lot alright there. He goes Steve Kerr on
21:30Willard and Debs