OAKLAND -- Despite two NBA titles and the best three-season record of any coach in league history, Warriors coach Steve Kerr enters Year 4 of a five-year deal worth $25 million without a contract extension.
Though the topic has been raised, it is not currently a priority for general manager Bob Myers or Kerr, mostly because the coach is focusing on personal health issues.
“I’m just not ready to look that far ahead,” Kerr said Sunday.
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“It’s not top of mind because I just can’t envision him not being our coach,” Myers said on the Warriors Insider Podcast this week. “If something happened health related, that’s different. But if it’s his option or our option to work something out, I’m really confident that it won’t be an issue -- for him or for us.”
Because he continues to experience lingering symptoms, including headaches and dizziness, related to multiple back surgeries two years ago, Kerr said his first personal objective is finding a path to a pain-free life.
Kerr missed 43 games at the beginning of the 2015-16 season and 11 more during the 2017 postseason. His health is trending upward, he says, but it’s a slow progression and a time-consuming process.
If Kerr, who is 207-39 through three seasons, is willing to wait, so are the Warriors.
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“There’s no secret of our admiration for Steve, not only ours in the organization, whether it’s ownership or myself and the front office, but that trickles up from our players,” said Myers, who 13 months ago received an extension believed to last through 2019-20. “He’s universally kind of beloved in the organization for his ability to coach, for his ability to lead, his humanity -- all the skills.”
Kerr, 51, said he is determined to avoid putting himself or the team in a situation where he signs a new deal and then discovers shortly afterward that he is unable to physically meet the demands of the job.
That doesn’t mean he hasn’t thought about being with the Warriors -- and only the Warriors -- beyond the contract that ends in 2019, the year the team moves into the new Chase Center in San Francisco.
“I know I enjoy coaching and that I want to keep coaching,” said Kerr, voted Coach of the Year in 2015-16. “But it’s impossible to know if I’ll be in the position to do so.”