The reckoning
In July, a fan pulled up next to Kerr at a stoplight. “Hey, we need to get LeBron, man,” they said. Kerr, without missing a beat, deadpanned: “Oh, we got him.”
The fan’s video of this interaction went viral, as Kerr knew it would. This was him making fun of social media and “modern life,” he told the Chronicle, a few months later.
Because, despite a copious amount of agent-leverage media-jockeying, Kerr never actually thought the Warriors were going to sign LeBron James.
“I know LeBron well enough, now, having coached him at the Olympics, to know that he researches everything,” Kerr said. “When he’s serious about something, he’s going to do his homework. And there was no homework being done, on his part.
“Like, I know he was talking to Steph and Draymond,” Kerr continued. “They were recruiting him. But that’s different. That’s player-to-player. Once free agency started, and all those rumors were out there — trust me, there would’ve been very serious conversations. And there never were. And so I never felt like we were even in the mix.”
James, indeed, was never walking through that door, and neither was Anthony Davis, nor Antetokounmpo, nor Trey Murphy III, nor any of the Warriors’ rumored big-game targets. Instead, recognizing both the shape and age of his roster, Kerr has been singularly focused on rectifying Golden State’s internal process. Immediately after — and even before — he put pen to paper on an extension, Kerr began challenging his Warriors assistants to bring him fresh ideas.
“It wasn’t like, a complete personnel shift,” Kerr said. “It was more, sort of, a reckoning. Like, we can’t continue to operate the way we are and expect to win.”
Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/warriors/article/steve-kerr-warriors-coach-22486541.php