During their 129-83 beatdown of the Phoenix Suns on Monday night at Oracle Arena, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr let injured All-Star forward Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, and other players coach the team during timeouts.
Kerr received criticism for doing so, and what was his response? According to Connor Letourneau of the San Francisco Chronicle, coach Kerr could not care less what people think.
Kerr on the criticism he took for turning over the huddle to players: “I don’t care.”
— Connor Letourneau (@Con_Chron) February 14, 2018
Many people were immediately critical of Kerr’s decision to let the players coach for the night instead of him doing his job. This included Suns veteran forward Jared Dudley, who saw it as an act of disrespect by Kerr to let Green and Iguodala coach the team.
“It shows a lack of respect for an opponent, and maybe right now, we don’t deserve respect. When you keep getting beat by 40, teams won’t respect you. But it’s up to us to change that,” Dudley said after Monday night's game, via Chris Haynes of ESPN.
Kerr did offer an explanation the other night as to why he went with this particular approach to let players coach during the timeouts, via a tweet from Anthony Slater of The Athletic.
“It had nothing to do with me being disrespectful. It had to do with me trying to reach my team. I have not reached them for the last month,” Kerr said. “They’re tired of my voice. I’m tired of my voice. It’s been a long haul these last three years. I wasn’t reaching them and we thought it was probably a good night to pull a trick out of the hat and do something different.”
The Warriors (44-13) have one more game tonight on the road against the Portland Trail Blazers before the All-Star Break.
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