Head coach Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors talks to an official against the Houston Rockets in the third quarter at Chase Center on April 6, 2025 in San Francisco.
Eakin Howard/Getty Images
Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr had some thoughts about the most recent late-season firing of an NBA coach, pointing the finger at big-money owners.
The Denver Nuggets fired head coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth, on Tuesday, just 11 days after the Memphis Grizzlies fired head coach Taylor Jenkins. These coaches were not only let go just before the start of the postseason, but they were let go from teams that were in solid positioning in the standings.
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Speaking with reporters ahead of Tuesday’s Warriors game against the Phoenix Suns, Kerr said he was “shocked, like everyone” about Malone’s dismissal. While he acknowledged he doesn’t know the details of why Malone was fired, he said: “It doesn’t seem right, but this is the business we’re in. We’re all going to suffer a similar fate at some point, that’s kind of the way it is.”
Kerr then stated that this current batch of wealthy team owners has brought more uncertainty to jobs like his, Malone’s and Jenkins’, even if it has also brought bigger paychecks.
“I think one thing that’s happened is most teams are now owned by billionaires, big corporations,” Kerr said. “So, we’re all more expendable. There’s so much money in the business right now. There’s pluses and minuses to that. We’re all making bigger salaries than we were five years ago, but we’re much more vulnerable, because I think a lot of owners aren’t that concerned with firing a guy and paying him off to go away.”
This doesn’t mean that Kerr is turning against his work. He added that he loves the job, even if “it’s not the most stable profession,” and that he has “great support from my ownership, my management.” Of note: The “ownership” Kerr is referencing includes majority owner Joe Lacob, worth $2.3 billion as of Tuesday, and Peter Guber, worth $1.5 billion, according to Forbes.
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Kerr is one of just two coaches to win a title in the past decade and not get fired — Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla is the other — so he really does clearly have a degree of support from the billionaire Dubs brass. Even if Lacob were to inexplicably decide tomorrow to can the decorated coach, he’d be on the hook for paying the highest coaching salary in NBA history at $17.5 million, which is far from chump change to even someone with his wealth.
While billionaires might be making life difficult for other coaches around the league, Golden State’s billionaire isn’t screwing over the Warriors coach, for now.
April 8, 2025
