Golden State Warriors: 10 Steps To Winning A Championship

9. Hiring Steve Kerr

Of course, the decision to fire Mark Jackson would’ve looked pretty foolish if Steve Kerr had turned out to be, you know, a run-of-the-mill rookie head coach. Just take a look at rookie head coach Derek Fisher with the New York Knicks — who pursued Kerr heavily last summer — if you’re wondering what a worst-case scenario would’ve looked like.

True enough, Fisher didn’t have a Golden State Warriors-caliber roster over in the Big Apple, but you get the picture: anyone but Steve Kerr, especially in the category of rookie head coaches, might have wasted another year of Stephen Curry‘s prime.

Instead, Kerr became the first rookie head coach to win an NBA title since Pat Riley did so in 1982.

Kerr kept Jackson’s elite defense intact, but he also elevated it to the league’s stingiest D. On the other end of the floor, Jackson’s rotations were a constant source of criticism, as was the fact that he couldn’t coax a top-10 offense out of an offensively gifted group.

Emphasizing ball movement and plenty of motion that highlighted his shooters’ strengths and played to the expanding pace-and-space era, Kerr also upgraded Golden State to the second-best offense in the NBA…in the process of joining the third most winningest team in NBA history:

You really can’t say enough about the job that Steve Kerr did this season. He knew his players had a connection with their previous head coach, but instead of ignoring it or trying to sweep it under the rug, he acknowledged the rocky situation and managed to get his players to buy into him and buy into their roles.

The Warriors added talent over the summer and they had plenty of it to begin with. But Kerr found a way to harness all that potential and turn it into a championship team in his very first season as a head coach. Firing Jackson was a dicey call, but hiring Kerr as his replacement ultimately made all the difference.

Next: No. 8