LAS VEGAS — In the fatal moments of their floundering season, the Golden State Warriors struggled in Sacramento to get into their offense on a consistent basis. The ball pressure from Kings’ guards Keon Ellis and De’Aaron Fox flipped that elimination Play-In game into a blowout. It served as a loud reminder to Steve Kerr heading into a sobering offseason.
“They pressured the hell out of us,” the Warriors head coach told The Athletic. “We didn’t have counters. We didn’t respond. And, you know, I’ve seen that more and more the last couple of years. The bigger the game, the more pressure defense we see and the tougher it’s been for us to execute.”
That was clearly front of mind for Kerr as he interviewed assistant coaching candidates throughout June. In the last two years, Dejan Milojević tragically died, and Mike Brown, Jama Mahlalela and Kenny Atkinson have departed for promotions elsewhere. To replenish a thinned bench, Kerr and the Warriors’ front office decided to add two assistants with specific qualities to their staff — a former NBA head coach and a former NBA player.
Kerr landed on Terry Stotts and Jerry Stackhouse. Despite a long history in the same industry, Kerr and Stotts didn’t know each other well before this hiring process. But the mutual respect was there and, as Kerr dissected the offensive issues that need fixing, it became clear to him that Stotts — a noted tactician — had the correct skill set to do the tweaking.
“He fits what we want to do and get a little bit more patterned,” Kerr said. “He loves movement. Portland, you know, they always had a lot of motion and movement, but it was probably more patterned than what we’ve done. Terry can really help us put in some new things that may be easier to run but maintain the motion.”
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Kerr, currently coaching Team USA, delivered that assessment the night before flying from Las Vegas to Abu Dhabi. The next day, Stotts, Stackhouse and the Warriors’ remaining operation landed in Las Vegas for summer league, giving Stotts his first chance to feel out his new situation. He and Stackhouse sat courtside for both games in Las Vegas so far and have been at the Warriors’ rented facility working with the various veterans who have strolled into town to train.
Stotts has been a head coach for 13 seasons: two in Atlanta, two in Milwaukee and nine in Portland. With the Trail Blazers, he designed an offense around Damian Lillard that finished second, second, third, third, sixth and eighth in six of the nine seasons. The Warriors, despite Stephen Curry’s brilliance, finished 10th and ninth the last two seasons, and Kerr felt they needed a refresh.
“They’ve had a great offense for a lot of years,” Stotts told The Athletic. “Steph’s been doing pretty well (laughs). I think I can maybe bring some fresh eyes to it. The roster has changed a little bit. But it’s not like I’m going to be in charge of anything. I think I can be a good sounding board for Steve on the offensive end and might be able to implement some things we did in Portland.”
Stotts was careful to reiterate that he doesn’t want to overhaul an offense that’ll still be built around Curry‘s and Draymond Green’s passing and off-ball strengths. The flow, movement and pet actions those two love will remain. But there’s a rising layer of youth — Jonathan Kuminga, Brandin Podziemski, Moses Moody, Trayce Jackson-Davis — that would benefit from more structure.
“Everyone knows we ran a lot of flares and pindowns (in Portland),” Stotts said. “I think the players we have will be good within that. Steve loves read and react. I think that’s the best way to play. But at the same time, you can put in a framework. What I like to have is — you can have a play call, but within that play call, you don’t know what’s going to happen. You might have splits or flares or pindowns or pick-and-roll and that freedom within a structure.”
Stotts used the “delay” play call as an example. It’s a five-out design with a big up-top initiating action and plenty of freedom to run various action around it, which can shift depending on personnel, an opponent’s defensive scheme or instinct within the moment. This type of nuanced tweak is what appealed to Kerr.
“We’re not going to shift dramatically,” Kerr said. “With Steph and Draymond, we’re always going to run a lot of things through those guys. And they’re going to play the way they play. But I do think that we can be, like I said, more patterned. We have to practice more. Bottom line, we have to practice more. I’ve got to figure out a better way to streamline practice, get our actions over and over again into patterns so that we can execute better against pressure defense. … We’ve always been a team that has had to rely on execution and movement because we’re not a great one-on-one team. But with the group that we have now, I think we need more work and more repeatable patterns.”
Terry Stotts and Damian Lillard spent nearly a decade together in Portland. (Steve Dykes / USA Today)
The other aspect of the Stotts hire is personality driven. The intel work from the front office came back pristine. Kerr said everyone “raves” about Stotts and believes he will fit seamlessly into the staff’s culture.
“Steve and I have had very few conversations before this,” Stotts said. “But I’ve always had a lot of respect and admiration for what he has said from a basketball standpoint, from a coaching standpoint, from a social awareness standpoint. Intellectually, I’ve always had a lot of appreciation of how he represents himself. That was certainly a big appeal to me.”
Stotts took the lead assistant job with the Milwaukee Bucks last season, but he never got the chance to put together an offense around the Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo pairing. Stotts stepped down from Adrian Griffin’s coaching staff during preseason. He declined to go into detail about the departure, saying, “I’m sorry it didn’t work out. I went there with a lot of excitement, and I’m disappointed it didn’t work out.”
Despite his newer relationship with Kerr, Stotts has some history within the Warriors’ organization. He was a Warriors assistant in 2004-05 under Mike Montgomery, coaching Mike Dunleavy Jr., Golden State’s current general manager, in his third year as a professional.
Stotts worked on the same staff as Warriors assistant Ron Adams for four seasons in Milwaukee, beginning in the late 1990s. Larry Harris, a current Warriors executive, hired Stotts to that Milwaukee staff. He has been in coaching since 1990 and seen a whole lot in the 34 years since.
“I was just talking to Ron about it,” Stotts said. “I’ve had the good fortune of working for three Hall of Fame coaches. George Karl is in the Hall of Fame. Mike Montgomery is Hall of Fame. Lon Krueger is Hall of Fame. Rick Carlisle will be in the Hall of Fame. Steve Kerr will be in the Hall of Fame. So I will have worked for five Hall of Fame coaches. That’s pretty cool.”
There’s another bit of relevant staff overlap. Last week, Stotts and Stackhouse were having a conversation in Las Vegas when they remembered that Stotts actually coached Stackhouse during his final season in Dallas, one of the least memorable of his storied 18-year NBA career.
Stackhouse was the third pick in the 1995 NBA Draft and made two All-Star teams. He’s been an assistant coach for the Toronto Raptors and Memphis Grizzlies and won D League Coach of the Year award for Raptors 905 in 2017. He spent the last five years as head coach at Vanderbilt, winning SEC Coach of the Year in 2023. That vast résumé appealed to Kerr.
“We’ve missed having a former player the last couple years,” Kerr said. “I love that he’s been a head coach at Vandy for five years. He’s not only a former player, he’s a former All-Star. He commands respect. He’s just got a really strong presence, and I think we needed that.”
Stackhouse’s strategic work will be mostly on the defensive side. He’s expected to work with Chris DeMarco on that end, according to Kerr. Assistant coach Kris Weems will remain on the front of the bench next to Stotts and Stackhouse.
“Just feel like we needed Jerry,” Kerr said. “We have a lot of young players. … There’s something about a former player where those guys can tell our players, ‘I’ve been there, I’ve done this. I know exactly what you’re going through.’ Jerry did it on a really high level, but he’s also coached at a high level. That meant a lot to me.”
(Top photo of Steve Kerr: Ed Szczepanski / USA Today)
