One week after firing Mark Jackson as their head coach, the Golden State Warriors hired another first-time head coach with announcing but no coaching experience in Steve Kerr. Kerr, who had long been rumored to be hired as the New York Knicks next head coach, has decided to stay close to his hometown of San Diego and coach an obviously more talented roster in the Golden State Warriors.
I have absolutely no problem with a team hiring Steve Kerr and I believe he could be a good head coach but the problem that I have with this is that Golden State just fired someone who had to learn how to coach on the job for another person who also has to learn how to coach on the job. No one will ever truly know the exact problems that Golden State had with Jackson but I can tell you if it had anything to do with their expectations being higher than where Mark Jackson brought this team, hiring a first time head coach is not the answer.
Mark Jackson was just one of the guys with this team. The players (for the most part) loved him and you can see that he could relate to them. Maybe his philosophy on coaching didn't match what the owner's believe his philosophy should have been but guess what...you hired this guy without knowing for sure what kind of coach he was because he never coached before. You've improved as a team and an organization with the leadership of him as your head coach.
To take this team to the next level was hiring a George Karl or one of the Van Gundy's. I would have even agreed with a Nate McMillan or Lionel Hollins. But if this organization doesn't think that they may have to take a step back with Kerr before being able to take a step forward, they're delusional. Lucky for them, Curry, Thompson and Barnes are all still young players so the possibility of them growing with Kerr into a better team is out there.
And maybe I am completely wrong about all of this. Maybe they are thinking that they have peaked with Mark Jackson at the helm and with the Clippers, Rockets, Thunder and Trail Blazers all only getting better, that they needed a change the direction of this team. I still don't understand how another first time head coach fixes that. Aren't you just setting yourself up for the same thing to happen? I'm in no way saying that Mark Jackson and Steve Kerr are similar coaches and will have similar coaching styles but I'm sure that Steve Kerr doesn't fully know what type of coach he will be until he finally gets started with it so how can the Warriors?
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