Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr has no plans on leaving the sidelines anytime soon.
As he said, per Tim Kawakami of the Mercury News:
Q: Do you imagine that you’re going to be coaching for two, three, five more years?
KERR: I imagine I’m going to be coaching for 15 or 20. I love–love–what I do. This is my passion. I love being part of a team. I’m incredibly lucky obviously to be coaching a great team right off the bat.
But we have a chance to make this a long run. I would love nothing more than to be part of this here in Golden State for the next decade.
It doesn’t happen very often, but with our young roster and the support that I have from Bob and Joe and Peter, Rick Welts, and the fan support here, I think we have a chance to make this a really long, successful run.
This has to be reassuring to Warriors fans, even if they don’t believe Kerr will stick with the team for another 15 or 20 years. The second-year coach missed more than half of the regular season while tending to complications that arose from offseason back surgery. It’s common knowledge that he was, and could still be, in a tremendous amount of pain.
There are those who have since started to speculate that his future on the sidelines would be in doubt—not just with the Warriors, but in general. That’s part of why many weren’t so sure Luke Walton would leave to take the Los Angeles Lakers’ gig; they had to wonder, even if only slightly, whether he might be in line to succeed a physically incapable Kerr within the next years.
This puts to bed all of that conjecture. Steve Kerr may still have his health issues, but he also appears ready and willing to stick this coaching thing out for the long haul, no matter what it entails. And for a Warriors team that has forged an unparalleled culture in the wake of his arrival last year, that’s absolutely huge.
