Report: Interim coach Luke Walton might get credit for Warriors’ wins, after all
The Golden State Warriors continued to run roughshod over the NBA during the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, blowing the doors off the Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings to extend their NBA-record season-opening winning streak to 18 games. With reigning-and-potential-future MVP Stephen Curry at the controls of the NBA’s No. 1 offense, the Warriors remain fascinating, must-watch TV on a nightly basis, the best possible reason for us East Coasters waking up looking like death warmed over after yet another Pacific time-zone tip.
And yet, despite his contributions to this historic start — his day-to-day management of the Warriors’ championship roster, his decision to make sure opponents see even more of the Curry-Draymond Green combination this season than they ever have before, his persistent harping on his charges’ predilection toward turnovers (24th out of 30 teams in cough-ups per game, 22nd in percentage of possessions ending in a TO), etc. — Luke Walton’s coaching record still stands at a neutral 0-0, the result of a longstanding yet informal NBA practice that credits team victories achieved under interim coaches (like Walton) to either the overall records of the infirm head coaches in whose places they serve (like Steve Kerr) or to, um, nobody in particular. That might soon change, though.
As the Warriors set out on a seven-game, 13-day road trip that opens up in Salt Lake City on Monday night against the Utah Jazz, word’s coming down that the powers-that-be in the league office are considering a bookkeeping alteration that would transform Walton from an invisible participant in history into the coach with the greatest winning percentage in NBA history. From Benjamin Hoffman of the New York Times:
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Until now, the [league’s informal] policy has mostly resulted in a difference of just a few wins and losses for the fill-in coaches, but for Walton, it means he is not credited with, among other things, the longest winning streak to start an N.B.A. coaching career and the longest winning streak for a team to start a season. With November about to end […] the policy would also cost him a chance at coach of the month honors.
A person confirmed Friday that the N.B.A. was considering a change in policy, with a decision expected in advance of the voting for coach of the month, which at the very least should clear up the confusion of whether the award could go to Walton or whether Kerr, having not appeared on the sideline, would technically be the team’s candidate for the honor.
Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group also reported the league’s discussions on the matter, though he noted that the Dubs themselves don’t seem particularly concerned with which suited-and-booted bench boss gets the credit for Golden State’s torrid start:
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“It doesn’t matter to me,” Walton said. “It really doesn’t. … I’m good either way.” […]
Warriors forward Draymond Green weighed in for Walton before Friday’s game against the Phoenix Suns.
“He’s done a phenomenal job, so he should have 16 wins right now. But it’s cool.”
Walton said Kerr has joked about the coaching record situation.
“For a while there I’d get the text after every game or if he was still in the building just a ‘Thanks for another one’ type of text,” Walton said. “Or before we’d walk out, he’d tell the whole staff, ‘Go get me a win, boys’ on our way out to the court.”
But while Kerr might crack jokes about Walton’s efforts in burnishing his own coaching résumé, the still-on-the-mend mastermind behind the 2014-15 NBA championship made plain his belief that Walton should be racking up the Ws in a conversation with ESPN.com’s Ethan Sherwood Strauss:
“I think it’s ridiculous,” Kerr told ESPN.com when asked about getting all of Walton’s wins. “I’m sitting in the locker room and watching the games on TV, and I’m not even traveling to most of the road games. Luke’s doing all the work with the rest of the staff. Luke is 15-0 right now. I’m not. So it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, to be honest with you. I don’t even understand it.” […]
Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said Walton’s job isn’t as easy as it might seem, even with all that talent on the Warriors roster.
“Having the weapons is half of it, but even though you have weapons, you can screw it up,” Kupchak said. “It doesn’t look like he screwed it up. I’m happy for him. He’s done a great job. We had him as a D-Fender assistant a year ago and he paid some dues in Memphis during the lockout. Those are things that you don’t have to do.”
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Combined with that through-the-ranks come-up, the benefit of being a second-generation pro raised in the game as the son of Hall of Famer Bill Walton, and a pedigree that to some degree mimics Kerr’s own — four years of undergraduate study under Lute Olson at Arizona, multiple years competing for titles while learning the ins and outs of mindfulness and the Triangle offense from Phil Jackson — Walton’s roaring success in his maiden voyage at the head of an NBA bench has made him one of the league’s most intriguing coaching prospects for clubs seeking both an infusion of youth on the sidelines and a stylistic overhaul that might produce results like those seen in the Bay Area these past two seasons. (Provided, of course, your squad comes with an unprecedented shooting god, an evolutionary combination of Lamar Odom and Shawn Marion who can guard all five positions while canning more than 40 percent of his triples and leading your team in assists, and plus passers at every position. Then, everything should be replicable.) It seems only fair that his particular case should result in a shift in past precedent.
Such a shift might raise some other potentially nettlesome issues, as noted by Hoffman of the Times:
If a rule is created to credit interim coaches with wins, it is unlikely that the N.B.A. would go back historically and change old coaching records. That is a key distinction because Don Nelson is currently the career leader in coaching victories with 1,335, but at least 10 of them came when Avery Johnson filled in for him in the 2004-5 season as he worked through some health issues. It is possible that a close examination of Nelson’s career, and the career of Lenny Wilkens, who is credited with 1,332 wins, could result in a change at the top.
… but, mostly, it seems like it’d be a fairly straightforward and simple clarification on a matter that few likely ever expected to require it. In some ways, then, it’s kind of perfect. Steph Curry and his Warriors seem to be changing everything about the state of the game every time they roll the balls out on the court. Why not change the way we tally wins, too?
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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