When Mark Jackson was ousted from the Golden State Warriors’ head coaching duties, it was the inexperienced Steve Kerr who was tapped by Bob Myers to officially spearhead the franchise on what could be much greater heights starting in 2014.
For Draymond Green, Kerr’s newly-implemented system was much different from what they adapted to Jackson.
“The offense was very pick-and-roll dominant,” Green describing their old offensive system prior to Kerr’s takeover upon his appearance on the “Checc’n In” podcast, per NBC Sports’ Eduardo Razo. “Like, we run a lot of pick and rolls for Steph [Curry], pinned downs for Klay [Thompson] and kind of and seeking out, like, matchups, you know, like, ‘Oh, there’s a mismatch we are going at that mismatch.’
“And then obviously, we had plays. Like, wasn’t that we didn’t have plays, but the bulk of our offense was pick and rolls and taking advantage of mismatches.”
At first, Green and the rest of the Warriors found it puzzling that Kerr was trying to instill ball movement-oriented schemes to their new identity as a club.
But the curiosity turned out to be a breathtaking experience, as they slowly absorbed the lessons of Kerr – which modified their fortunes moving forward.
“When Steve Kerr took over the job, I remember the first training camp, he’s like, ball movement, cut, stop standing and waiting for the ball,” Green said. “I’ll catch the ball at the top of the key, Steph on the wing. And he’s like, Steph, cut and it’s like, ‘No, dude, I’m supposed to pass the ball to Steph right here.’ And he said, ‘Pass the ball and move. Without the ball, the ball will find the hands of the people that are supposed to get the shots.’
“We all thought he was out of his mind. And then as we started to do it, then you figure it out and you like, ‘Yo, this is actually pretty incredible.’ Like, it’s ball moving, ball moving. Ball moving. Screen roll, it’s ball moving, ball moving. ball moving. There goes the mismatch, but nobody’s really standing. And that’s kind of where all this flow offense and all this stuff came.”
In Jackson’s last season in 2013-14, the Warriors averaged 23.3 assists per game and 107.5 offensive rating – the seventh and twelfth-best in the league at that time, respectively. But under the guidance of Kerr on the following campaign, the franchise became a spectacular show every single night with an overwhelming amount of ball and player movement, as they raised a much improved league-leading assists per game average of 27.4 and an astounding 111.6 offense rate – which ranks at the second spot.
Starting that championship year, the Warriors have consistently placed themselves atop of the NBA’s power ranking statistically year by year – all behind Kerr’s masterful tactics that revolutionized the league forever.
And since then, it became the blueprint of Golden State’s alive and beating basketball dynasty.
