Steve Kerr drops humorous one-liner about Steph Curry for advice to younger self originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Steve Kerr knows what advice he’d give his younger self when starting his Warriors coaching career in 2014.

The 60-year-old shared his hilarious answer with reporters on Sunday before Golden State’s 141-127 overtime loss against the Toronto Raptors at Scotiabank Arena.

“Just coach Steph Curry if you get a chance,” Kerr said. “Stay with that guy. I followed my own advice on that one.”

There isn’t any better guidance than that.

Kerr has spent his entire 12-year coaching career with Curry and the Warriors and has enjoyed working with the sharpshooter to form the team’s iconic dynasty, which won four NBA championships and reached six finals between 2014-15 and 2021-22. 

The coach-guard duo also has dominated internationally, winning gold medals together at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics for an iconic Team USA men’s basketball squad.

Kerr is grateful to have won a lot alongside Curry. He, too, has enjoyed shaping Golden State’s offensive identity around the 11-time NBA All-Star’s 3-point shooting prowess.

“It’s a good question,” Kerr said. “It’s funny because I came in that year (2014-15) and we played a little differently than a lot of teams and everybody said we were really innovative. 

“It didn’t feel innovative to me because it was things I already learned with Phil Jackson and Greg Popovich. If anything, some of the stuff we were doing, I went back 30, 20 years to bring back. Today, we are sort of doing the opposite. We’re following other trends around the league.”

As he implied, Kerr carries several lessons he learned as a player who won five NBA titles over 15 seasons alongside other basketball legends into his coaching efforts with the Warriors.

While Kerr wisely would tell his younger self to stay attached to Curry — as he already has — the coach also would suggest being as adaptable as possible.

“I think what I’ve learned is that the league is constantly changing,” Kerr said. “And as a coach, you have to constantly be aware of what’s happening. Best example of that is two years ago, you wouldn’t have ever been able to convince me that we should crash on offensive rebounds. Now I know differently. It took our younger coaches to bring that suggestion to me. It took watching film. It took experimenting.

“So even having that conversation, 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have entertained it. So what I’ve learned 10 years into my coaching career, having been a part of championship teams, great teams, I’m learning something I never knew before. I think that’s just the case forever. Life’s always changing. Things are always changing. The game is always changing. You have to be a lifelong learner and you have to embrace everything that’s happening.”

Kerr’s journey with Curry isn’t over yet.

But even before knowing how the story ends, Kerr would tell his younger self to stay with the game’s greatest shooter of all time for the long haul.

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