Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr has never been one to hide behind clichés, but his latest comments may have poured gasoline on an already tense situation with Jonathan Kuminga.
Kerr admitted that developing young players has never been his strength.
“I really lean on my younger coaches,” Kerr said recently on Glue Guys podcast.. “One of the ways the league is so different now is that we’re a developmental league. We don’t practice anymore, so we have to develop these 19-year-old kids who are coming in without much practice time. Frankly, I’m not great with it. I’m an older coach, a disciple of Phil [Jackson] and Pop [Gregg Popovich].”
For a coach with four championships under his belt, it was a revealing confession.
Kerr went on to explain his reliance on assistants, “I lean on my younger staff to install development drills, decision-making stuff, things I never did or knew to teach. The key is to empower the people who can do those things.”
Those words land heavily in the middle of Kuminga’s contract standoff. Drafted seventh overall in 2021, the 22-year-old has voiced frustration with his role.
After finishing last season with 24.3 points per game on 55 percent shooting and nearly 39 percent from three over his final four outings, Kerr still reduced him to a situational piece in the playoffs.
“I’ve been asked to win,” Kerr told The TK Show in May. “And right now, he’s not a guy who I can say, I’m going to play 38 minutes with the roster we have, Steph, Jimmy, and Draymond [Green], and put the puzzle together that way and expect to win.”
With negotiations stalled and Kerr openly acknowledging his shortcomings with young talent, the gap between coach and player looks wider than ever.
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