steve kerr tries to reach the warriors with experimental coaching

the golden state warriors have been nba champs 2 of the past 3 seasons, and they have one of the best records in the association again this season. but as mark medina on mercurynews.com

[head coach steve] kerr sensed the warriors [have] struggled with inconsistency lately partly for one reason: “i have not reached them for the last month. they’re tired of my voice.”

sense means feel. means the warriors have had problems. lately is recently. partly is partially, in part, one reason. reach means effectively communicate with.

steve kerr lookig confused or maybe frustrating

i can’t reach these guys. (jonathan daniel/getty images)

kerr considered letting his assistant mike brown (assume control) monday night. brown subbed (substituted ) for kerr during last year’s playoffs when kerr was suffering from back pain, but in the end kerr concluded

mike’s voice might as well be my voice.

means brown’s voice would be the same–the players would be tired of hearing him too.

 mike brown holding steve kerr back

 assistant coach mike brown guiding kerr back to the bench (ray chavez/bay area news group)

this is how kerr sees his staff’s role:

as coaches, our job is to nudge them in the right direction and guide them. we don’t control them, they determine their own fate….they have to take ownership of it.

as is used to refer to a position, job or function. nudge is push, encourage. is similar to destiny, what’s going to happenownership is possession. kerr’s idea is that the players must take responsibility for i.e. own how they play.

an elephant example of nudge

an elephant giving a baby elephant a nudge

and while his success as a coach has been enormous, kerr

has always maintained his success stems from having talented players.

stem from means comes from, grows out of, is the result of.

so to achieve the objective of the players taking ownership of their fate, kerr implemented a unique tactic against the phoenix suns on monday that (got attention, surprised people)– he let players take over his coaching responsibilities. andre iguodola, draymond green, david west, javale mcgee and steph curry performed various gameday and in-game tasks usually reserved for coaches.

draymond green and steve kerr disagreeing

steve kerr coaching draymond green (usa today)

the reaction was mixed. some thought the move could be understood as a lack (absence) of respect  for the suns who have a record of 18-41 so far this season. but devin booker, the suns’ best player, doesn’t share that opinion.  his comments contained these hypothetical observations (–if + past tense + modal auxiliary verb)

if i was a coach, i’d do that throughout the year, so i wouldn’t even look at it as disrespectful…..but if he didn’t have four all-stars, i don’t think he’d be doing that.

means at different moments, from start to finish.

devin booker and tony the tiger

devin booker. currently on the zucaritas box in mexico.

one of those all stars is steph curry, who had some difficulty managing coaching duties. curry

nearly drew a delay-of-game warning for taking too long in a timeout to open the second half.

means receive indicates that the time curry took during the timeout was excessive.

steve kerr coaching steph curry

steve kerr coaching steph curry

curry’s comments after the game might mean that he thinks a break from the of the nba regular season will have more effect than kerr’s experiment. he commented

our lack of execution or intensity on the floor during games or whatever the case, we obviously haven’t been great by any stretch of the imagination in the last month. but this all-star break should be great for us to recalibrate, reset and hit the ground running.

whatever means that regardless of the reason, they haven’t played well, and any stretch of the imagination emphasizes that point.  hit the ground running means start well or fast.

an image of hit the ground running

the nba all-star game is this weekend. the warriors next game is next thursday against the los angeles clippers.

so can the warriors owners stop paying kerr and just let the players coach themselves? kerr’s comments on that…

let’s not get carried away; i like it here. i want to stay. i like this job. i’d like to stay on the job. but tonight they needed a new voice.

let’s not get carried away means let’s not overreact.

steve kerr and steph curry share a laugh

let’s not get carried away, u coach the next game, coach. (noah graham/nbae, via getty images)

what do u think about the technique kerr employed? was it effective only because of the talent the warriors have and the suns don’t have? share your opinions under leave a reply


 

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