We’ll get back to the road trip soon, but wanted to throw this one out there. Steve Kerr last night in Miami finally played the “pickup game” card that I’ve used heavily on every livestream, when it comes to the problem with the referees that has heretofore plagued the 2023-24 season. Here’s the (near) full quote from pregame at Kaseya Center:
The last couple of years, it’s been going more towards the offensive side. And it seems like defensive players just are always getting called left and right for that. It has changed though subtly or not so subtly over the last month or so, and so I think the league is trying to find the happy medium and to me, there is a happy medium to be found.
The players have never been more skilled shooting the ball, dribbling the ball. Incredible amount of talent in the league. We want that talent to shine. We want to see our fans want to see players make great plays. So we should have rules that dictate freedom of movement, freedom of flow. But our fans also like competition and we should have rules that don’t allow bullshit, frankly, so that’s the happy medium.
Just don’t call the bullshit, frankly, we have called for like 10 years, and I’ve talked about it enough this year, but you asked, so I got my pulpit back. So, anyone who watches the game knows. If you see a guy come off a high screen and jump backwards, into the defender and we give a guy three free throws, that’s on us. That’s stupid. You wouldn’t call that in a pickup game. It’d be embarrassing to call that in a pickup game.
If a guy on defense puts up his arm bar and the offensive guy grabs it and hooks it and flails his arms, just don’t call it. It’s stupid. Again, you wouldn’t call it in a pickup game. I think the happy medium is, get rid of it, but call the stuff. That’s a foul.
We had a game the other night against Indiana. It was like Rick Carlisle after the game said to me, it’s like the ‘90s. Sorry, Rick, if I got you in trouble. And there were guys getting hacked left and right and it was like no calls and it’s like, no, this isn’t what we’re looking for either. We’re looking to eliminate all the gamesmanship and the manipulation of the rules. But if there’s a foul, you gotta call a foul.
So, I think the league will always be searching for the best version of our game. And we’re all in the same boat and we all want the best product that’s good for all of us. So hopefully we can keep working towards finding that.
As hopefully most of you know, in a pickup game, you call your own fouls. But there’s another part of that. The defense will call any traveling or similar violations. The stuff that’s hard to track are the off-the-ball fouls — you would definitely need a referee for that.
So, on offense with calling your own fouls, anything “ticky-tack” that bails you out of a turnover of a missed shot, if you call that, arguments will ensue and people will call you out for making a weak call.
I’m not even sure Adam Silver has ever played in a pickup game. That might be the problem. Every guy I used to play pickup with, they’d watch an NBA game and be outraged for seeing something that they’ve experienced otherwise on the playground. Does that even still occur these days or is AAU just too predominant? I had to retire long ago from pickup due to double sore Achilles heels.
I’ll have more to say on this in the future, but it’s really about first of all being grounded with a foundation of knowing what would’ve been called in a pickup game, if you’re translating that to officiating in the NBA and an overall strategy. And then I do think there is a disconnect, again going all the way back to cultural playground foundations, but also, are the refs going into any particular game with a plan? That’s the other big problem which I’ll explain in detail at a later date.
Below is only the pregame transcript and video. Again, I’ll catch up on the basketball from Miami and Orlando by tomorrow…
0:00 STEVE KERR PREGAME GSW-MIA: “Trayce will not play, hopefully tomorrow, but we’ll see.”
How do you expect that to impact the center rotation?
“Looney will play.”
0:17 Steve, what do you make of the league’s partnership with legal sports books and the effect that that’s had so far?
“I’ll let the NBA answer those questions, yeah. It’s not my business.”
0:36 Obviously you faced the Heat once earlier in the season, and obviously they have a lot of guys out tonight. What’s sort of the mindset of going into this game, because obviously Jimmy (Butler)’s out, Kevin (Love)’s out, but Spo (Erik Spoelstra) knows how to use a lot of guys?
“Yeah, we’re not falling for that trick. We’ve fallen for that trick many times in the past. And it’s always a bad thing to me, when the other team is missing some of its best players. I would guess that most coaches around the league agree. It’s just an automatic red flag for our team. Don’t let your guard down, but no matter how many times you say it, it just feels like in this league, you’ve got so many talented players who can’t wait to get their chance. They get out there on the floor, they play with amazing energy. We all know Spo’s a great coach, that Miami has a culture of competitive desire. So we’re not falling for that. We know what we’re in for tonight.”
1:42 You’ve spoken in the past about the league, with all of the offense and basically the pressure that the defensive players have. In an ideal world, in a Steve Kerr ideal world, even going back to your playing days, where’s the happy medium between what used to be ‘80s or ‘90s basketball, as opposed to these games that we see regularly with 140, 150 points a game?
“From a couple months ago, or from what I’ve seen the last couple months? The last couple of years, it’s been going more towards the offensive side. And it seems like defensive players just are always getting called left and right for that. It has changed though subtly or not so subtly over the last month or so, and so I think the league is trying to find the happy medium and to me, there is a happy medium to be found. The players have never been more skilled shooting the ball, dribbling the ball. Incredible amount of talent in the league. We want that talent to shine. We want to see our fans want to see players make great plays. So we should have rules that dictate freedom of movement, freedom of flow. But our fans also like competition and we should have rules that don’t allow bullshit, frankly, so that’s the happy medium. Just don’t call the bullshit, frankly, we have called for like 10 years, and I’ve talked about it enough this year, but you asked, so I got my pulpit back. So, anyone who watches the game knows. If you see a guy come off a high screen and jump backwards, into the defender and we give a guy three free throws, that’s on us. That’s stupid. You wouldn’t call that in a pickup game. It’d be embarrassing to call that in a pickup game. If a guy on defense puts up his arm bar and the offensive guy grabs it and hooks it and flails his arms, just don’t call it. It’s stupid. Again, you wouldn’t call it in a pickup game. I think the happy medium is, get rid of it, but call the stuff. That’s a foul. We had a game the other night against Indiana. It was like Rick Carlisle after the game said to me, it’s like the ‘90s. Sorry, Rick, if I got you in trouble. And there were guys getting hacked left and right and it was like no calls and it’s like, no, this isn’t what we’re looking for either. We’re looking to eliminate all the gamesmanship and the manipulation of the rules. But if there’s a foul, you gotta call a foul. So, I think the league will always be searching for the best version of our game. And we’re all in the same boat and we all want the best product that’s good for all of us. So hopefully we can keep working towards finding that.”
4:53 Draymond said the other night, he said you’re a really quiet team defensively. It’s something you talked about earlier this year. How big a problem is that right now?
“Yeah, we’re very quiet, across the board. We don’t have a lot of guys who are loud defensively. Draymond is obviously, Looney is, and we’ve missed that. So it’ll be good to have Looney back out there. Looney is the quietest person away from the game, but he’s one of our best. And you can see, the fourth quarter, we had a couple of missed switches where they ran a nice action. And one play, I think Edwards got free for the dunk… no, Edwards made a three and the next one Gobert got it done. And it was just a missed switch. And if you’re quiet, switching is a lot harder. And so we definitely need to be louder.”
5:57 How correctable is that quality in younger players? Wiggins seems to be a quiet individual in general. Just how correctable is that?
“It’s correctable with some guys. Loon didn’t say anything for two years and then his third year he started really talking. So I’m hopeful that our younger guys, Trayce, JK, eventually can get there. They’re both very quiet, away from the court. So some guys can adapt and get there like Loon. Others don’t. So you just keep working.”
6:27 After the Timberwolves game, Ant Edwards said that they knew the exact play that you guys are running the side out of bounds flare to Klay. As a coach, what’s your reaction to that? And how do you adjust going forward?
“Well, we ran it. We’ve run the play one time this year. We ran it late in the Laker game about six weeks ago. And got a three. And so I am someone who kind of thinks that if a play works, you can go to it, but you don’t want to run it every time or the team’s going to know, but there’s great scouting these days, and so every team, we have 12 assistant coaches. We know what other teams like to run at the end of games, too. So generally you go into a game and there’s four or five things that a team might run, at the end of the game. And that’s part of it. We all kind of know what each other likes to do and we get ready for it. So they did a good job preparing for it. And that play has other options. And so when you design stuff, you’re always looking at two or three different things that you can get out of it. But didn’t get a great look, but Klay got a decent look.”
7:47 I have a very hard hitting, not at all leading question. Who is Most Improved Player? And why is it Jonathan Kuminga?
“Yeah, I don’t spend a whole lot of time looking at everybody else’s candidates for Most Improved. But I just think JK has really taken a leap this year with his confidence, with his awareness of what’s happening. He’s obviously got a ton of talent, explosive athleticism and he’s learning how to use it and he’s impacting winning and he’s had a great leap this year. So if I get a vote, I’ll vote for him. I think it’s more general, more confidence, overall. He actually shot it better last year, but he’s a much better player this year, because he’s recognizing when and how to attack. And I think the one area where he’s improved dramatically is recognizing when Steph and Klay get open and first couple of years he wasn’t, frankly, he wasn’t seeing that. So he’d catch it. You just want the quick swing, ‘0.5 basketball’ and he’s doing that often this year, and that’s a huge jump. It may not seem like much, but it really connects the game for us. And it’s a massive part of playing for our team, know where those guys are and get it to them quickly.”
9:29 And you’ve had a chance to be around Bam (Adebayo) with Team USA. Just what do you think makes him unique as a person and a leader?
“Bam, he’s a great player. Number one, you’re always looking for elite two-way basketball players if you want to win at a high level. So that’s what we look for at Team USA, obviously, and all the NBA teams look for that. And Bam was amazing in the Olympics in Tokyo at both ends of the floor, elite switch one through five guy, but also great as a push man in transition. It’s very unique to have a center who can push in transition. And we had Draymond and Bam doing that. And it was really effective at the international level. So, he’s a great, great player, but it’s fun to get to know him. He’s quiet, but very mature, very professional, very kind person who you enjoy being around. And you see his character, you see the quality of human being, just being around him every day.”
10:39 Hey Steve, just kind of a random question. The answer could be no, but you coached a couple of guys from Wisconsin, Tyler Herro’s from the area. I’m just curious if you see any similarities in their games?
“Yeah, that’s a tough one. I mean, I’d have to think about Wisconsin and why would I want to do that? I’m sorry. Got that on the video. Great cheese. Great, great cheese, beer. Great beer. Beyond that, I like the Brewers. Brewers are a nice, nice team.”
11:29 ANTHONY EDWARDS POSTGAME GSW-MIN on assistant coach Micah Nori knowing the Warriors’ last sideline inbound play to Klay Thompson
11:44 ERIK SPOELSTRA PREGAME GSW-MIA on the Warriors having a lot of clutch games and struggling this season
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