As Kerr Nears Extension, Warriors Entrusting Beginning of Their Inevitable Future

Steve Kerr has been re-signed to a contract extension by the Golden State Warriors.
 
I will now wait whole you pretend that this is news.
 
Go on, run some errands. Take a nap. Whatever.
 
Since everyone involved in the matter of retaining Kerr as the coach of champions had said for weeks, even months, that a new deal was coming, its arrival is the one thing worse than fake news. It is no news.
 
But for the voyeur in all of us, it ostensibly takes him through Year Two of the Post-Oakland Era, and almost certainly makes him the third-highest-paid coach in the NBA after Doc Rivers (yes, that Doc Rivers) and Gregg Popovich.
 
Now let's see if he can win four championships in the next three years (assuming this was a normal extension and not a short-term one) to make up for the one the Warriors didn't get in 2016, or the one they did get in 2017 when he only worked one-third the time.
 
More interestingly than the obvious reward for services rendered, Joe Lacob has entrusted what may very well be the beginning of the Warrior rebuild that must inevitably come. After all, even if Lacob decides to become the all-time leader in luxury taxes paid and sign the Golden State nucleus to fat new deals, it will be a team in its 30s, and even with modern medical and conditioning advancements, only LeBron James is made of adamantium and all others entering their 31-or-32 years can begin to see obvious signs of wear and tear on the bodies they have utilized so well to date.
 
And at that point, Kerr will begin to learn how the other 331 NBA coaches have lived.
 
Kerr's life has been largely a charmed one, even after you allow for the back surgery that has turned into a spinal cord issue that refuses to go away, and even after deducting style points for last year's ongoing struggle with team-wide ennui. And whether you regard him as the coach with the highest winning percentage ever of .808 or the highest winning percentage ever of .786 (depending on how you view his two absences for medical reasons), he has been gifted with one of the best teams ever.
 
On the other hand, coaching very good teams to be great is in some ways more difficult than coaching a mediocre team to be decent, and the longer that is demanded the harder it gets. That was evident last year when the Warriors found self-motivation to be more difficult than in Years One through Three of The Good Old Days, and navigating the exciting world of massive contracts for more players than can be logically afforded will only make the task thornier.
 
But at least he can't say he didn't get what he had coming to him, In a just world, Kerr would get a dollar less than Popovich just out of respect, and have to buy the next 120 dinners out of gratitude – which he would cheerily do.
 
And if Kerr tries harder, maybe he can make some of that Doc money with his next deal.

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