Steve Kerr is celebrating his team’s second consecutive NBA title but he’s very well aware of the threats that linger from other teams in the NBA. The Houston Rockets still linger out West, despite losing Trevor Ariza in free agency.
And even in the Eastern Conference, which is now LeBron-less, teams like the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers linger. The Celtics might still be interested in swinging a deal for Kawhi Leonard, too, which would put them in super team territory as well.
Kerr has certainly raved about the Celtics in the past, and he did that again at Las Vegas Summer League. In an interview with Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald, the Warriors head coach declared Boston the new favorites in the Eastern Conference now that the Cavaliers are not the perennial favorites without LeBron James.
“I don’t think that’s big news,” Kerr told the Herald. “I mean, obviously Cleveland is no longer a threat to win it all. So you look at the East landscape, and Boston, they’re the favorite now.”
The context here is that the two spoke earlier in the season about the team’s success, which in a sense did not surprise Kerr as much as some others given they were missing Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward in the postseason. But Kerr raved about the team’s “modern NBA defense” and how the team’s depth was built through the draft. In fact, he joked that the Celtics were “bad” for basketball in the same way people have complained about Golden State in recent years.
“They’re horrible for basketball,” Kerr said. “I think we should break up the Celtics.”
The whole piece has an interesting breakdown of the team that’s not altogether revolutionary. Boston and the Sixers are, of course, the heavy favorites in the Eastern Conference because not much has changed with their rosters thus far in free agency. But Kerr is right to be wary of other teams following the same strategies that made Golden State such a force.
If anything, though, the Warriors got even better this summer with DeMarcus Cousins. The Warriors might still have some tough competition in both conferences, but no one has kept pace with them just yet.
