Warriors’ Steve Kerr drops beautiful take on loyal players like Stephen Curry & Tim Duncan originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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The Golden State Warriors found their success through continuity. Coach Steve Kerr never left the side of Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and the rest of the organization despite trying times. This is why he posits that loyalty is a special diamond of a value in the NBA. He even emphasized its important by dropping a San Antonio Spurs all-time great in Tim Duncan as an example.
Warriors’ Kerr drops heaps of praise for loyal Curry and Duncan
Player empowerment and movement are not at all wrong. The NBA has revolved around these two values for quite a bit which meant that only a few stars stayed loyal to their franchises. Steve Kerr pointed out that this rarity is a massive feat that helps out the player, organization, and even the chances of winning titles. The Warriors head coach even pointed out legends like Stephen Curry and Tim Duncan as great examples, via Nick Friedell of The Athletic.
“The beauty of Steph, the beauty of Tim Duncan, the beauty of these culture guys who are superstars, is that you can have a long run like we have, and you build continuity. And the continuity means not only do you get through the adversity, but on-court stuff makes sense. Our split cuts, we’ve been doing them for 12 years. If we had a brand new group of people, all the stuff you see Steph and Dray doing in pick-and-roll, that takes years to develop,” Coach Kerr said.
The Warriors head coach does make a lot of sense here. Adversity often creates better culture and cooler heads when some unfortunate events transpire. Curry had the option to leave the Warriors after they became a lottery team but chose to stay. This led Coach Kerr to the 2022 NBA championship.
The same thing can be said with Duncan. Coach Gregg Popovich instilled a great culture which banked on being a team together for a long time. The Spurs big man could have quit. He could have pushed through with a trade which would have sent him to the Orlando Magic after his first three years in the NBA. But, Duncan chose to stay and build a winning Spurs culture. He would then win five NBA championships before capping his career off.
Coach Kerr knows how valuable Duncan and Kerr were to their franchise. This brand of loyalty is often just not afforded to players given certain restrictions or values these days. Hopefully, this beautiful virtue comes back in a few years.