It’s safe to say Steve Kerr wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about discussing a young player stepping up following a 16-point loss.
The Golden State Warriors head coach didn’t outright admonish the question, but he certainly didn’t hide his irritation either. It wasn’t just the nature of the question from a member of his team’s press corps — it was the timing. As if Trayce Jackson-Davis scoring 19 points in a bounce-back performance was supposed to serve as a salve for a 116-98 drubbing on their home court at the hands of the Miami Heat.
“Steve, given everything that happened tonight, how nice was it to see Trayce step up? Especially after the rough night, he had the other night.”
The second-year big man out of Indiana had shown some promise, rebounding from a scoreless outing against Sacramento in a 30-point loss two nights before.
But Kerr didn’t think it was the time — or place — for the question.
Not after another double-digit loss. Not with the Warriors slipping into mediocrity, now sitting at .500 (18-18) after a 12-3 start.
“I mean, I can’t sit here after that and be excited about anything,” Kerr said, as covered by SFGate. “He scored 19 points — great. He’s having a good season, but who the hell cares if we’re not competitive, if we don’t have a competitive spirit and a fight and a willingness to compete through everything? I’m not going to sit here and talk about ‘Hey, so and so had some points.’ Great. Who cares?”
As Kerr searches to find answers to his team’s struggles, it’s probably not going to be in a second-year player trying to find consistency. This isn’t a team rebuilding from the ground up; this is a franchise with a championship standard, not one that settles for silver linings.
“It’s about us competing and being the Warriors,” he added. “Being the team we’ve been for 10 years and not feeling sorry for ourselves. That’s what I’m thinking about tonight.”
He was not thinking about Jackson-Davis scoring 19 points, however.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.