Golden State’s former head coach helped ease the likes of Klay Thompson and Steph Curry into the league. He hasn’t had a top job in the NBA since
The Golden State Warriors pretty much owned the Western Conference for half a decade, appearing in five successive NBA finals from 2014 to 2019. Three of those five ended up with Golden State hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy; if it not for a superhuman comeback by the Cavaliers in 2016 or a rash of catastrophic injuries in 2019, they might well have won all five. The fact that they’ve made the postseason this year – they face the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night in the play-in tournament – despite the season-long absence of their second-best player, Klay Thompson, bodes well for the future, too.
All of this appears at the top of what’s already considered a Hall of Fame resume for current Warriors head coach Steve Kerr. But is Kerr merely reaping the rewards of a foundation built by his predecessor, Mark Jackson? And does Jackson’s absence from the head coaching ranks since his Golden State exit raise wider questions about how black coaches are treated in the NBA?
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