Steve Kerr

Kerr acknowledges Warriors' 2022 NBA title was ‘surprise'

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Programming note: Watch Monte Poole's wide-ranging interview with Warriors coach Steve Kerr in the latest episode of "Dubs Talk," which will debut Wednesday at 11 p.m., after "Dubs Talk Live," on NBC Sports Bay Area.

SAN FRANCISCO – The question was somewhat sensitive, which might be why former Warriors general manager Bob Myers’ careful answer contained only a partial affirmation.

“Well, I’d say we didn’t know what we had,” Myers told NBC Sports Bay Area early last season, seven months before he left the organization. “The previous two years were tough on us.”

Coach Steve Kerr, however, is willing to make a full concession. Or confession.

“It’s fair to say it was a surprise,” Kerr recently told NBC Sports Bay Area.

The question I’d asked of both men: Is it fair to say the 2022 NBA championship kind of a surprise?

I’ll always think it was. Kerr’s answer goes straight to the point and explains why it’s reasonable to reach that conclusion.

“It’s fair to say it was a surprise because we hadn’t made the playoffs the previous two years,” Kerr said. “One of those years was injury-filled. The next year was a little disjointed.

“What happened that year was we got the roster just right. Bob and his staff did an amazing job, getting Otto Porter (Jr.), getting Gary Payton (II), getting Beli (Nemanja Bjelica). Those guys were really important additions. We got Klay Thompson back. Everything came together that year and we found our mojo again.”

Winning that championship, glorious as it was, had a negative impact on the Warriors’ long-term thinking because it gave them an inflated opinion of the roster. It sent the franchise down a path from which it soon realized was wayward. Thus began the scramble to adjust and recover.

Beating the Boston Celtics in the 2022 NBA Finals allowed the Warriors to believe that maybe their two-timeline plan could work. Their youngsters – Jordan Poole, James Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody – had experienced the best possible postseason outcome. They’d seen how it was done, what it takes, and now had a textbook to which they could refer.

Within six months of the parade down Market Street, it became apparent that Porter and Bjelica and Payton – all at least 29 years old – were difference-makers not easily replaced by those identified as the team’s next generation.

Four months after receiving his championship ring, Wiseman was traded to the Detroit Pistons. Five months later, Poole was traded to the Washington Wizards. Golden State had adjusted and rerouted, abandoning half its long-term future. The reacquisition of Payton and the acquisition of Chris Paul was testimony that two-timeline approach had failed.

The 2022 championship was a look-what-we-found excursion. Perhaps because the Warriors missed the two previous playoffs, they opened with the fourth-best championship odds, behind the Brooklyn Nets, Los Angeles Lakers and Milwaukee Bucks.

Not much in the regular season changed the conventional thinking about the chance of Golden State winning it all. The Warriors finished as the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference, behind the Phoenix Suns and Memphis Grizzlies.

“Maybe we weren’t the best team in the regular season,” Kerr said. “But sometimes things fall your way. Everything lined up in that playoff run. Phoenix lost to Dallas, which was a better matchup for us. Boston was really young. They were a great team, but they didn’t have Finals experience. That helped us. We got healthy, and we stayed healthy.

“Everything clicked. And our team deserved it. They earned it because they were so connected all year. It was a beautiful season.”

This was a different group of Warriors than the powerhouses that rolled to five consecutive Finals appearances.

The 2015 squad was a mild surprise but featured MVP Stephen Curry and five more lottery picks: Harrison Barnes, Andrew Bogut, Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, Klay Thompson. All but Barnes were between 25 and 31 years old.
When a few folks around the NBA disparaged the 2015 championship, the team opened the 2015-16 season with 24 consecutive victories and finished with an NBA-record 73 wins.

The addition of Kevin Durant in the following summer led to the third, fourth and fifth consecutive trips to The Finals. The Warriors were heavy preseason favorites each season.

All of which sweetened the ride to the 2022 championship, Golden State’s fourth in eight seasons.

“It was the most unlikely of the four,” Kerr said. “When we had Kevin, it was almost like everyone expected it. Because everyone expected it, it was a relief in many ways. It’s unfair to Kevin in some ways because he was Finals MVP in both years. He was incredible. So amazing. But it was like we were supposed to win.

“Before he had him and after we had him – because we didn’t have him – we weren’t supposed to win. There was just a different vibe around the first championship and the fourth because they were more unexpected.”

By the time the Warriors reached The Finals, they were slight favorites over the Celtics. When Boston dominated the fourth quarter to earn a comeback win in Game 1 at Chase Center, the odds shifted the other way.

The Warriors won four of the next five games, three of which were in Boston.

“When the buzzer sounded, everybody with the organization just felt like Steph Curry deserves this moment,” Kerr recalled. “It’s the only thing left for him; he hadn’t won Finals MVP even though he was great in previous Finals. We all felt so happy for him.

“And to win in the Garden, the hallowed grounds of Boston Garden? It was really cool.”

Winning a championship, in any sport, is always cool. Winning one against the odds, though, is a most gratifying and delicious surprise.

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