Mark Jackson
Photo: USA TODAY Sports

Mark Jackson, the former head coach of the Golden State Warriors, feels he deserves credit for helping the team establish a winning culture.

Jackson believes he helped the team set the foundation for future success. The Warriors played in five straight NBA Finals and won the title three times (2015, 2017, 2018) after Jackson left the team in 2014.

“Steve Kerr is a heckuva basketball coach and an even better person. So he’s done a heckuva job with the Golden State Warriors. (But) I would say get the facts straight. The fact is we were a top five defense over the course of that tenure and we were a top 10 offense when it was all said and done.

You have to understand – and these guys will admit it – the Steph Currys, the Klay Thompsons, the Draymond Greens: the team that I had are not the same individuals (that they were when I coached them). They look the same, and they’re the same people, but they’re not the same players that they were when I first got ahold of them.

That being said: I’d be a fool to sit here and tell you that there’s nothing that I would do differently. There’s certainly things that I would do differently. And I look forward to the opportunity of one day proving that. But there’s no question about the success. This is a team that, one time in the previous (17) years made the playoffs.

All of a sudden, they propel themselves into a dynasty. I don’t want credit for making them a dynasty. But from that one time in (17) years to all of a sudden being a playoff team, something good takes place,” Jackson said, via Ian Begley of SNY.