The defending champion Warriors are 3-5 to start the new season, and ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins says that coach Steve Kerr is in for one of the toughest challenges of his career in trying to get Golden State back to an elite level.
According to Perkins, the Warriors need to start playing “agenda-free” basketball on the offensive end, and Kerr faces the tough challenge of catering two his established stars, his rising stars like Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins, and his young role players like Moses Moody and James Wiseman.
“This is going to be the biggest challenge of Steve Kerr’s coaching career. And I say that because, one, you alluded to talking about Draymond Green and punching and supposedly knocking out Jordan Poole. So, OK, now you have to regain that trust, and now you have to get back that chemistry.
But let’s just think about everything else that’s going on with that team at the moment. You’ve got Klay, who is still trying to find himself and get back to the Klay of old. We’ve seen flashes but it hasn’t been consistent, right, and his minutes been down.
And all of a sudden you have Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins, guys who played a huge role as far as them winning the championship last year… Now you have those two guys in particular that got contract extensions, got huge deals….. Let me tell you what happens with young guys like that. They know that they were part of the reason that they won, and so when you get back to the locker room you have to get them back to the roots of embracing and being that same player that they was last year.
… So now Steve Kerr, he’s got to get on his best stuff and make sure he get everybody on the same accord, make sure that everybody start to know that we’re playing agenda-free basketball. That’s why the Warriors suck right now on the defensive end, because everybody individually is trying to find themselves on the offensive end and it’s affecting their defensive play.”
