Draymond calls Kerr criticism ‘unfair’ for coaching of Warriors youth

Draymond calls Kerr criticism ‘unfair’ for coaching of Warriors youth originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Throughout his 10-year Warriors tenure, coach Steve Kerr often is under fire due to the short leashes he places on younger players and his at-times questionable rotation decisions.

But Draymond Green, longtime Golden State forward under Kerr, believes much criticism his coach faces is unfair.

In a column from Saturday, The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami shared Green’s perspective on the noise surrounding Kerr, specifically the coach’s delayed insertion of two-way phenom Johnathan Kuminga into the Warriors’ starting lineup.

“I think [Kerr] gets a lot of criticism for, ‘Oh, he’s not playing young guys,’ ” Draymond told Kawakami. “But would JK have been as ready as he is now a year ago? I personally don’t think so. I think we all believed in what JK could become. But you almost do JK a disservice by not giving him credit (for) the work he put in to become the player that he’s become this year.

“I think Steve has caught a lot of unfair criticism about playing young guys when No. 1, you haven’t had to or needed to, but as soon as you’ve needed to, you’re doing it. And you’ve made that adjustment, and look at what it’s done for us this season.”

Green believes Kerr was right to limit Kuminga’s minutes until relatively recently, as the 21-year-old wouldn’t have developed as he has without Kerr’s decision-making.

The four-time NBA All-Star added that Golden State hasn’t needed to resort to its young guys, which is true big-picture-wise, considering the Warriors have won four NBA championships in the era of Kerr, Green, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson.

Regarding Kuminga, Kerr shared a similar stance toward the situation as Green.

“That’s the thing with this, there’s no formula,” Kerr told Kawakami. “And I for sure have made my share of mistakes with these guys and with our team. That’s part of it. This is not a science, and you’re trying to nudge these guys along.

“I think what happened with JK is he had a breakthrough the last two months and he started to do the…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/draymond-calls-kerr-criticism-unfair-203123447.html

Author : NBC Sports BayArea

Publish date : 2024-02-25 20:31:23

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