Steve Kerr maintained his recent comments on Monday that he felt that coaching the horrendous Golden State Warriors team last year was more enjoyable than coaching the team that went into the 2019 finals.
He is not, however, happy with a member of the Bay Area media to quote him out of context and try to make it look like Kerr was trying to get Kevin Durant right.
Not even a little.
Steve Kerr ‘angry’ at ‘terribly unfair shot’
Kerr said he “liked the last season, when we had the worst league record, more than I liked the last season when we went to the finals”.
The Golden State had just 15-50 last season, in a brutal attempt to return to the NBA finals – when it fell to the Toronto Raptors. Both Klay Thompson and Durant were injured in that series, and Durant then fled to the Brooklyn Nets.
What Kerr meant was not that the Finals team was bad for training, but that starting to work with a new group of young players trying to learn as much as possible was a big change of pace due to the stress of reaching five consecutive years in the NBA. Finals.
And, of course, it makes sense.
Although Kerr did not mention Durant by name when defending his point of view, Drew Shiller, from the NBC Sports Bay Area tweet about it, certainly made it look like he was trying to hit Durant.
Steve Kerr said @loganmmurdock he liked the last season (when the Warriors was 15 to 50) more than Kevin Durant’s last season with the Warriors.
“That last year was difficult. There was a lot going on – some you know and some you don’t. That was very difficult.”
– Drew Shiller (@DrewShiller) March 22, 2021
Durant thought that too.
So Kerr, before Tuesday’s fight with the Philadelphia 76ers, clarified his comments without being asked – and called Shiller by name for what he considered “a terribly unfair shot”.
Steve Kerr spontaneously brings up a podcast commentary of his that went viral today involving KD’s final season compared to last season. He said he is “angry” at the way it was contextualized.
Part 2 pic.twitter.com/GjECpdORg6
– Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) March 23, 2021
“I did a podcast a few nights ago with Logan Murdock and mentioned during the podcast that last season, in which we had the worst league history, was more enjoyable from the coach’s point of view than the previous season, when we lost in the Finals” said Kerr. “The context was, basically, that after the five-year race we were in, that fifth year was just an absolute bear. It was the stress level, two injuries at the end of the season during the finals, DeMarcus also had a serious injury that took him out of the playoffs for six weeks. We had all kinds of stress.
“The main point of the conversation was the stress of the five-year race compared to coaching a youth team that doesn’t win a lot of games, but is eager to learn. than the previous season. That’s it, that was my comment.
“Drew Shiller decided to tweet today that Steve Kerr said he enjoyed the last season more than Kevin Durant last year with the Warriors.
“Okay, so I want to make that extremely clear. If you really want the story to be accurate, I encourage you to listen to the podcast before we take this story to ramifications and use it as my quote, because it’s the furthest thing from the truth. It was a terribly unfair shot.
“Taking something completely out of context to the point that people read and thought that was my quote. You have all been very fair to me over the years and I rarely receive any complaints. I know that I am fair game for criticism whenever we play a game I’m going to make the wrong decisions that you can criticize, I’m going to do a lot of things that you can criticize and I deserve it.
“But taking that comment and putting it in a tweet and sending it to the universe was so irresponsible and damaging, and I’m angry. And I know what is going to happen. I know this is going to be taken out in the morning shows and people they’re going to talk about it and they’re going to use what they think is a quote that is actually something entirely made up. I’m not happy. I think it’s wrong. Again, I try to be honest. I try to share everything so that our fans know that our team is going through. What I’m going through. We like to share our story. It’s a big part of promoting our team. So this is really worrying for me. thereby. “
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