Steve Kerr allowing Warriors players to run huddles during a win over the Suns was more nontroversy than controversy.
Was anyone actually upset with Kerr besides Phoenix guard Troy Daniels, who clearly directed his dismay at Kerr (and seems to look for chips to stack on his shoulder)? Even Suns forward Jared Dudley, who called the tactic disrespectful, acknowledged the problem was Phoenix might not deserve respect.
It seems people just assumed other people somewhere would be bothered by Kerr’s plan. That alone was enough to make it a heavily discussed storyline.
Some coaches would just want to stay clear of the noise. Not Kerr, though.
Kerr on 95.7 The Game:
I’ve been quickly reminded today of what an insane world we live in and how everything now is just a story and constantly judged and picked apart. And this really isn’t that big of a deal. It’s a basketball game. We have a veteran team. You turn over the timeout huddle to the players so that they can discuss strategy on their own.
I don’t think it’s like earth-shattering news. I really don’t. And I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I just think it’s a good coaching tactic to try to change things up but it’s the world we live in. So, everyone’s going to debate it. Whether it’s a controversy or not, it has to become one, I guess.
I don’t think it’s something we would do often, but I think it’s a good exercise. I think there’s a lot of things that coaches can do that are sort of outside the box that can be very positive, and I think it’s good to experiment with them.
This is every single day for seven, eight, nine months depending on how your team does. And so everything gets pretty monotonous. I think you’ve got to do your best in the NBA to try to keep things light and loose and occasionally throw the team a curveball. So I can see doing it again one time, a couple times. We’ll see.
Kerr did this to motivate his players. The Warriors are too good, and they’ve gotten bored by winning. They probably correctly believe they can just turn it on when it counts. But Kerr wants to safeguard against bad habits creeping in, so he found a way to engage his players.
And it seemed to work. Why would Kerr shelve a successful strategy? Protecting opponents’ feelings – if any of them were actually besides Daniels’ – isn’t a good enough reason.
