{"id":623063,"date":"2026-04-23T10:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/623063\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T10:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:22:09","slug":"steve-kerr-can-leave-the-warriors-but-can-he-leave-steph-curry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/623063\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Kerr can leave the Warriors, but can he leave Steph Curry?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Oct. 11 inside the Galen Center on the campus of USC, on another sun-kissed Southern California day. The Golden State Warriors are wrapping up a preseason practice ahead of a matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers. Inside the practice gym, members of USC\u2019s men\u2019s basketball team linger for a glimpse of Stephen Curry. Off to the side, Jimmy Butler, who did not practice, is trying to recruit some teammates to go to lunch.<\/p>\n

Even here, in a college facility, with future Hall of Famers Butler and Draymond Green nearby, all eyes, as usual, are focused on Curry.<\/p>\n

As the rest of his teammates make their way down the stairs and toward the buses, Curry takes a right to the USC weight room for more work. His security man, Yusef Wright, dutifully stands guard outside, making sure one of the most famous sports figures in the world has no distractions. Everything about the Warriors still flows through Curry after all these years.<\/p>\n

Steve Kerr knows that more than anyone.<\/p>\n

Minutes before, the 60-year-old Golden State coach was asked how often he finds himself grateful for Curry. He smiled before answering, almost as if the question didn\u2019t require much thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I either thank him or I tell people how thankful I am,\u201d Kerr told The Athletic. \u201cI just told (USC men\u2019s basketball coach) Eric Musselman, \u2018There\u2019s no way I would have been here 12 years if Steph Curry wasn\u2019t here. The organizational stability we have really comes from him. There\u2019s very few people who can have that kind of an impact on an organization, a league, a city, a region. He does all that and more, so yeah, I\u2019m thankful for him every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerr laughed as he finished his answer because there isn\u2019t a day that goes by that he doesn\u2019t have that thought.<\/p>\n

But beneath that gratitude sits a question Kerr has never had to confront until now: Could he actually walk away from Curry?<\/p>\n

Six months later, that question is no longer hypothetical. It was a question Kerr was asked directly after the Warriors\u2019 season-ending loss to the Phoenix Suns on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to walk away from Steph,\u201d Kerr said after the game. \u201cI\u2019m definitely not going and coaching somewhere else next year in the NBA. I would never walk away from Steph, but all the stuff has to be aligned and right.\u201d<\/p>\n

That tension \u2014 his certainty about Curry and uncertainty about what\u2019s next \u2014 is where Kerr sits.<\/p>\n

Kerr invited these questions at the beginning of the season when he didn\u2019t sign a contract extension. Those questions only grew even louder Friday night, when he huddled with Curry and Green<\/a> late in the game and told them, in part, how much he loved them and thanked them for everything.<\/p>\n

As Kerr weighs whether to return for a 13th season, a decision that will be answered at some point in the coming days after a conversation with Warriors owner Joe Lacob and general manager Mike Dunleavy, one of the biggest questions he will have to answer is whether he can actually walk away from Curry \u2014 and the stability the superstar brings with him every day.<\/p>\n

League and team sources said throughout the season that Kerr\u2019s desire to speak candidly on social and political issues has at times caused internal frustration. Veteran journalist Marc Spears said during a radio interview this week that one reason Kerr may be hesitant to return is that he has felt \u201cstifled\u201d at times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether that becomes a deciding factor remains unclear. What is clear is that optimism inside the organization about Kerr\u2019s return has faded in recent weeks. Multiple team\u00a0sources have stressed that no decision has been made, and won\u2019t be made until Kerr meets with Lacob and Dunleavy, but staffers have begun to brace themselves for the possibility of change.<\/p>\n

ESPN reported Monday that if Kerr returns, the Warriors would want him to agree to a multi-year extension. One team source would neither confirm nor deny that detail, but it is clear that both sides are approaching a pivotal conversation. Speculation around the league about possible successors has already begun. \u00a0Yet, there remains hope inside the organization that the partnership can continue into a 13th season.<\/p>\n

That hope starts with Curry.<\/p>\n

Kerr has said over the years that Curry is the most joyful player he\u2019s ever coached. That word \u2014 joy \u2014\u00a0has been a cultural trademark of Kerr\u2019s coaching tenure and everything that Kerr has tried to build in Golden State.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our players would tell you there is a lot of joy in our building every day,\u201d Kerr told The Athletic last month<\/a>. \u201cFor a lot of different reasons. But those reasons have to be real and have to be apparent every single day. When the players come in and they feel every day what you stand for, then they\u2019re gonna believe it. And you\u2019re giving them the compassion that they deserve and the love that they need, then it can become real, but it\u2019s a hell of a lot easier when you got Steph Curry in the building, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curry really is the messenger of Kerr\u2019s coaching gospel. He\u2019s a living, breathing embodiment of all the ideals Kerr believes in most. Their values go deeper than basketball, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cSteph and I basically share the same values in life,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cAnd so I feel like a lot of our culture has come from Steph and my shared life values. And it was pure luck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did Kerr know it from the beginning of his tenure?<\/p>\n

\u201cI could see it from afar,\u201d he said. \u201cI just thought, well, Steph is Tim Duncan. He\u2019s the real deal. Whoever coaches him is gonna be so lucky because he\u2019ll be in collaboration with the coach and once I got here and I saw the joy that he took out of the game itself and life itself, (I thought)\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cHell yeah! This is my guy. We\u2019re the same guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerr couldn\u2019t help but laugh about the last part. There was one key difference between the two men in his mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly, one guy\u2019s a little more talented than the other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As Curry sat at the podium late Friday night in Phoenix, he was clearly a little thrown off by the number of questions about Kerr\u2019s future that were directed his way. When asked repeatedly about Kerr\u2019s coaching decision, he pushed back on the idea that their late-game embrace was some sort of farewell signal.<\/p>\n

The questions persisted, though. So much so that Curry, who will make almost $63 million next season and said he would be open to discussing a contract extension this summer, interrupted another question about Kerr\u2019s comment regarding his belief that coaches have expiration dates to ask one of his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas he in here like going crazy?\u201d Curry said. \u201cY\u2019all are giving me some lines. I\u2019ve only had one conversation with him, so I didn\u2019t get the (full extent). I\u2019m learning on the fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

No person in the organization would be more directly impacted by Kerr\u2019s departure than Curry. The pair have experienced the greatest highs the NBA can offer together. They\u2019ve won four NBA championships and a gold medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics for Team USA. They are each other\u2019s biggest public supporters. Change is part of the NBA, but this pairing has withstood the highs and lows the league has to offer \u2014\u00a0until this moment.<\/p>\n

Curry could have made a plea Friday night to publicly ask Kerr to stay. He didn\u2019t. Instead, he took the moment to express what he wants Kerr to have the most as he makes his decision in the near future. Curry only wants Kerr to come back for his 13th season if he really wants to be back, and only one person knows the answer to that question.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want Coach to be happy,\u201d Curry said. \u201cI want him to be excited about the job. I want him to believe he\u2019s the right guy for the job. I want him to have an opportunity to enjoy what he does. So whatever that means for him, everybody\u2019s plan is their own, and I\u2019m not gonna try to tell anybody what to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knows how I feel about him. That shouldn\u2019t even need to be said. However it goes, you\u2019re thankful for what we\u2019ve been able to accomplish over this run. Thankful for the opportunity to hopefully do something again next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerr knows he\u2019ll never have a better player to coach in Curry. He knows he has played a massive role in defining Curry\u2019s legacy, and Curry has played the same role in his. So, the real question isn\u2019t whether Kerr can walk away from being coach of the Warriors, it\u2019s whether he can walk away from this one constant that helped him build the Warriors into the Warriors.<\/p>\n

Whether he could walk away from Curry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Oct. 11 inside the Galen Center on the campus of USC, on another sun-kissed Southern California day.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,8217,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-623063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golden-state-warriors","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}