Steve Kerr expects young stars to experience growing pains
During the Golden State Warriors‘ loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday, some of the team’s young stars struggled to reach their usual performance levels. Brandin Podziemski and Moses Moody had nights they would rather forget, especially on the offensive end.
During his postgame press conference, veteran head coach Steve Kerr sought to ease the pressure on his younger players. He noted it’s normal for young talents to experience growing pains in the league and that not every game will see them perform at their best. After all, inconsistency is part and parcel of developing raw talent.
“I mean, we’re playing a lot of young guys, we started two of them,” Kerr said. “This is all part of it. You have to go through multiple seasons to understand the different games that are gonna happen. The different styles. The different emotional swings. All of that has to be experienced by young guys in order to develop and grow and understand how to win. It’s all part of it.”
For the past few seasons, the Warriors have been straddling two timelines. However, this is the first season that approach has begun to pay dividends. Overall, the young core has been highly encouraging as the future of the franchise. Yet, tough nights are undoubtedly going to occur.
Kerr says the growing pains the Warriors' youngsters are going through is necessary for their development pic.twitter.com/npdb8vlKGi
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) March 10, 2024
Nevertheless, the Warriors’ future looks exciting based on what we’ve seen from Jonathan Kuminga, Podziemski, Moody and Trayce Jackson-Davis this season. If that means the occasional tough night, it will undoubtedly be worth it moving forward. Still, Kerr will likely explore ways to mitigate the risk of those tough nights occurring once the playoffs begin.
