In a bit of surprising news on Thursday, the Golden State Warriors announced that Steve Kerr would be taking a leave of absence from the team to recover from back surgery and that assistant Luke Walton would serve as interim coach during his absence.
Just one day after news of Kerr’s leave broke, though, he went ahead and showed up at the Warriors’ practice anyway.
Remember, this is supposed to be the first day of head coach Steve Kerr's leave of absence. pic.twitter.com/lWY12S5P1h
— Rusty Simmons (@JRustySimmons) October 2, 2015
The timetable for Kerr’s leave was unknown, but Warriors general manager Bob Myers said he did not expect the process to be long-term, and the teams’ press release indicated that it would be based on Kerr’s progress.
Well it certainly appears as though Kerr is ahead of schedule, with Rusty Simmons of The San Francisco Chronicle reporting that Kerr might be back sooner than anyone possibly could have imagined.
Warriors assistant coach Ron Adams told @SiriusXMNBA that he expects head coach Steve Kerr (back) to return in a few days.
— Rusty Simmons (@JRustySimmons) October 2, 2015
Provided Kerr is indeed back to coaching within the week, that is great news for the Warriors, and also shows that the team and media likely greatly overestimated what his recovery time would be considering that Kerr’s leave of absence was a major story and required a full page release from the team on their website.
Alas, the Luke Walton era may just have to wait.
(Via Twitter)
