Sleepy51 wrote:While Floppy is right in a general sense that fans are hyperbolicly skeptical of coaches and lots of Kerr washouts have been NBA washouts altogether, the fly in the ointment here is that crediting him with Kuminga’s development path ignores the fact that Kuminga’s season this year was not in accordance with Kerr’s expressed wishes timeline or vision of the player. Kerr had(s) JK pegged as an off ball role playing energy guy at the 4. That’s not what he’s becoming at all. Kerr also had all but mothballed JK including a public statement that he was out of the rotation when injuries and Draymond’s suspension took that choice away from Kerr. Kuminga shoved it up his ass with an extended scoring barrage and volatile media leaks. He is becoming a different player than Kerr envisioned and at a dramatically different pace than Kerr articulated. JK’s 2024 season has been explicitly in spite of Kerr’s choices and preferences.
And as floppy has always been good at articulating, two different things can be true at the same time. Kerr has been demonstrably good at identifying players who have proven to be not worthy of development. that doesn’t not mean he has been particularly good at developing the player who has demonstrably shown to be worth developing … and then there’s Moody….
With regard to Kuminga, kerr is a lot of rooster taking credit for the dawn here.
Not sure that's 100% accurate. I think Kerr was frustrated by JK's offensive decision making. Namely, long 2s, isolation offense and lack of ball movement. Considering how much JK seems like a people pleaser, I don't think he was doing those things to spite Kerr but, as he has said, because he did not know what the coaches wanted from him. Coming into the year, Kerr did not see JK as the 2nd scoring option, monster on the block and above avg iso scorer. He did bury him early this year and after player lamb over him last season and not playing him at all in the playoffs after he couldn't guard monk and fox, it was not a good look for Kerr.
That said, not sure how many saw the leap JK was going to take, particularly in terms of his handle, passing and attacking the rim. The early season shooting struggles were also a big factor. Wiggins, CP3 and JK couldn't hit the broad side of a barn in the first month. Wasn't cp3 shooting like 7% from 3 after the first 10+ games? The lack of spacing and haphazard rotations (due to wiggins playing like the invisible man and Dray suspensions) made it tough.
None of this is to excuse Kerr's handling of the young guys. Just not sure how much of the blame pie is on him, his assistants, JK and Moody, or factors we don't really see from the cheap seats.