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The Golden State Warriors have revolutionized not only the offensive firepower that can be had in this league, but also the efficiency in which it can happen under.
While the Dubs were a team with plenty of potential under Mark Jackson, the Steve Kerr era brought a completely different dimension, tapping into the potential of each of their players and maximizing them into an orchestra where every player played a role and the symphony wouldn't be what it is without each of the moving parts delivering a proper performance.
Point guard Stephen Curry noted how Kerr's new system has made this offense the most unstoppable one in the league.
“The main goal is to just make the defense make as many decisions as you can so that they're going to mess up at some point with all that ball movement and body movement and whatnot,” said Curry, according to Baxter Holmes of ESPN The Magazine. “But it took awhile for us to kind of get the understanding of where each other was going to be without having to call a set play or whatnot. So it took awhile.”
The Warriors' offense is simple enough at its core — pass the ball around and find the guy with the best opportunity to score. As it gets into the more specific points of it, it's all about picking your poison. Who is more dangerous? A long-striding Kevin Durant driving to the heart of the lane? Or a wide-open Curry curling down to the corner?
These are the questions a team is repeatedly faced with on a nightly basis when defending this team and while anyone on the team will miss a shot during a play, Golden State's goal is to force these questions into every defender play after play, making their odds to succeed much greater than to fail.
Kerr and his coaching staff relentlessly force teams to flip a coin in many instances, knowing that the odds of them stringing every right decision is very, very slim.
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The Warriors struggled at first during the start of the 2014-15 season, taking a loss to the San Antonio Spurs early on to understand what it really takes to reap the fruits of a high-assist, low-turnover ratio during the length of an NBA game.
Kerr's system combines a rapid-fire tempo from the mid-2000s Phoenix Suns, the offensive execution of the Spurs, and bits and pieces of Phil Jackson's triangle system, which forces teams to make split decisions on defense in very little time.
The former Chicago Bulls point man borrowed from his old team as well as plays from the 90's Utah Jazz, including the split cuts that John Stockton and Jeff Hornacek used to run off of Karl Malone's massive screens.
“It was like it was destiny to have Steve come in and try to coach that way,” said Luke Walton, former Warriors assistant coach. “Because they were built to play that way.”
