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A source told ESPN they felt Stotts and Kerr were "kindred spirits," and that Kerr has always appreciated Stotts' offensive acumen and how he's communicated with players.
Kerr landed on Terry Stotts and Jerry Stackhouse. Despite a long history in the same industry, Kerr and Stotts didn’t know each other well before this hiring process. But the mutual respect was there and, as Kerr dissected the offensive issues that need fixing, it became clear to him that Stotts — a noted tactician — had the correct skill set to do the tweaking. “He fits what we want to do and get a little bit more patterned,” Kerr said. “He loves movement. Portland, you know, they always had a lot of motion and movement, but it was probably more patterned than what we’ve done. Terry can really help us put in some new things that may be easier to run but maintain the motion.”
Stotts has been a head coach for 13 seasons: two in Atlanta, two in Milwaukee and nine in Portland. With the Trail Blazers, he designed an offense around Damian Lillard that finished second, second, third, third, sixth and eighth in six of the nine seasons. The Warriors, despite Stephen Curry’s brilliance, finished 10th and ninth the last two seasons, and Kerr felt they needed a refresh. “They’ve had a great offense for a lot of years,” Stotts told The Athletic. “Steph’s been doing pretty well (laughs). I think I can maybe bring some fresh eyes to it. The roster has changed a little bit. But it’s not like I’m going to be in charge of anything. I think I can be a good sounding board for Steve on the offensive end and might be able to implement some things we did in Portland.”
Stotts used the “delay” play call as an example. It’s a five-out design with a big up-top initiating action and plenty of freedom to run various action around it, which can shift depending on personnel, an opponent’s defensive scheme or instinct within the moment. This type of nuanced tweak is what appealed to Kerr. “We’re not going to shift dramatically,” Kerr said. “With Steph and Draymond, we’re always going to run a lot of things through those guys. And they’re going to play the way they play. But I do think that we can be, like I said, more patterned. We have to practice more. Bottom line, we have to practice more. I’ve got to figure out a better way to streamline practice, get our actions over and over again into patterns so that we can execute better against pressure defense. … We’ve always been a team that has had to rely on execution and movement because we’re not a great one-on-one team. But with the group that we have now, I think we need more work and more repeatable patterns.”
NBA•Fan: The Lakers have tried 3 times to hire Terry Stotts. He has turned them down all times. (Irwin). George Karl: Friends don’t let friends become assistant coaches for the modern Lakers.
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Warriors intend to bring on Terry Stotts, Jerry Stackhouse to coaching staff
Adrian Wojnarowski: The Golden State Warriors are planning to hire Terry Stotts as lead assistant coach and Jerry Stackhouse as an assistant, sources tell ESPN. Both come to Steve Kerr’s staff with significant head coaching experience.
Terry Stotts in the mix for Cavs job
It is not yet clear if the Cavaliers are keeping Darius Garland on their roster this offseason, but league sources say that the prospect of hiring Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts is among the scenarios Cleveland has contemplated in the initial stages of its coaching search.
Jovan Buha: The Lakers had previously looked at uh Terry Stotts as potentially an offensive coordinator so I think maybe he's a name that gets floated. I think they will look into having a more experience staff after Darvin Ham had a staff with no head coaching experience, and kind of compared to looking at the the staff under Frank Vogel with Jason Kidd, who had previously been a head coach a couple times, David Fizdale who had been a head coach and Phil Handy who had obviously been a 10-year assistant and was was beloved across the league, especially with stars.
Once on the inside, Rivers learned more. There was uncertainty. On his first day, Rivers asked the coaching staff what the Bucks’ identity was. “No one had an answer,” says Rivers. The communication was confusing. “Unfortunately for Griff, he had two staffs,” says Rivers. “Half of his staff was with Bud [former coach Mike Budenholzer], and then he had half of his staff. That doesn’t work.” When lead assistant Terry Stotts resigned after a conflict with Griffin, it got worse. “If I was a rookie coach and my lead assistant, who was next to the head coach, quit right before the season, the second guessing would start,” says Rivers. “When players see second-guessing among the staff, it’s over. That really hurt Griff, and that was really unfair.”
SI: Terry Stotts’s exit in the preseason shocked everybody. You played nine years for him in Portland. How did that affect you? Dame Lillard: It was comforting for me knowing that he was there and that it was somebody that I knew and had a significant role on the staff. I think early on, there was a lot of things happening that was familiar. He would be breaking down stuff and I already was on top of it. And as a point guard and as a scorer and somebody who plays a significant role on the team, your comfort with what you’re doing as a team, so you can be able to direct traffic and kind of manage a game is important. And I think when Terry left, that part of it, the familiarity of what we were doing, it kind of left with him. Now I’m like, O.K., what’s this play?’ I was kind of in the figuring out stage. So when you don’t really know stuff like the back of your hand, it is hard to direct traffic and be telling people, ‘I want you right here or there.’ Point guards, especially veteran point guards, man, we play the game differently than a young talented point guard. We are just manipulating everything. And that’s hard to do for the team and for yourself when you’re just trying to learn.
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A first-time coach, the Bucks encouraged him to replace Stotts with someone who had previous head-coaching experience, sources said. The team hired highly regarded international coach Trevor Gleeson in late December but continued to ask Griffin to seek out counsel from other mentors, sources said.
It was exactly two weeks ago today that one of the most well-connected NBA insiders I know sent me an alarming rumble about the Milwaukee Bucks. Heard [Terry] Stotts would be coaching the Bucks today if he was still there. I always — always — trust this particular informant, but I have to put my hand up and admit that I struggled to believe this specific scenario (which is why I couldn’t report it just because I had heard it).
While The Athletic reported an incident between Terry Stotts and first-year Bucks head coach Adrian Griffin at a recent shootaround, one source who’s been in contact with Stotts during the preseason told Heavy that there may be a larger matter in play. “It seemed like he was having trouble adjusting to being an assistant again,” he said. “I think that was a factor. “He was out for two years, he doesn’t need the money. … Maybe it was just a thing where he just wasn’t feeling it.”
While The Athletic reported an incident between Terry Stotts and first-time Bucks head coach Adrian Griffin at a recent shootaround, one source who’s been in contact with Stotts this preseason explained to Heavy that there may be a larger matter in play. “It seemed like he was having trouble adjusting to being an assistant again,” he said. “I think that was a factor. “He was out for two years, he doesn’t need the money … Maybe it was just a thing where he just wasn’t feeling it.”
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