Kerr acknowledges the dramatic changes Golden State faces this season: “You know, the new building is almost a metaphor for how we can approach the season".

We've got a chance to reset some things, anything we feel like could improve our team. It's a great opportunity to start fresh on some things. And yet, as I was saying to Mark, we'll rely heavily on our veteran players, Steph and Draymond and Looney, Klay, to kind of pave the way for the younger players. 

We want to maintain the culture that we've built, but we want to make sure our players are put in the best position to succeed, and the last four years we pretty much knew exactly what that meant. So that's why we have a lot of work ahead, but it's exciting.”

Elaborating on his ‘veterans’, Kerr explains how he will utilise duo Curry and Green:

“Well, we'll rely on those guys along with Looney and Klay at some point, just to try to teach everybody, all the new people here what we're about. Not only plays and schemes and that kind of stuff, but just our culture and our feel. So those two [Curry and Green], will play a huge role early on in the season as we're trying to establish kind of a sense of who we are.”

And how to replace Klay Thompson defensively:

“I think that's the challenge for the team this year, our defensive performance. Not just Klay, it's the rest of the guys we lost. We basically lost our entire wing fleet of long-arm, long-limb defenders, so we have to develop a new identity defensively. The good news is that Klay will be back and when he's back, we'll be that much better.

But in the meantime, we're trying to develop a young team and help them grow, and they're doing a great job. Draymond and Steph are doing more teaching than they've ever done before in practice. So it's a really healthy process and I think our fans are going to enjoy watching these young guys and watching our team develop over the course of the year.”

Given the roster change this season, Kerr expects a different set of circumstances:

“The last four years have been so different, we knew what we had, and most dynamics we were working towards the playoffs… This is an entirely new group, and so we're trying to figure out who we are, what we are, and I will for sure monitor Steph and Draymond and Looney, the guys who played heavy minutes last year, so I'm not going to overwork them. We have a lot of work to do with the group itself, as I've mentioned several times. 

So there should be plenty of intensity, plenty of motivation. We've got jobs on the line. We've got playing time at stake. We've got so much up in the air and there's a great opportunity for a lot of players to grab it, and you can only do that by competing.”


Speaking of the primetime game for Europe, Kerr highlights it’s importance for the association:

“Well, it's a big part of the NBA brand. It's a big part of FIBA. We want the game to be played all over the world and we want fans to be interested. So I think it's a good idea to have some games that are shown primetime there.”

NBA Sundays presented by NBA2K20 on Sky Sports – part of a record 48 Primetime games live on Sky Sports starting from 8.00 pm every weekend. This week on 27 October the Oklahoma City Thunder host the Golden State Warriors on Sky Sports Arena from 7.30 pm.