Kerr: “We’ve wanted a space-5 (big man) for a decade”

[MIN-GSW videos/interviews/transcripts]

Might go live tonight, Sat 12/13/2025, to discuss some of these things. Let me give you the stream of consciousness based on last night’s loss to Minnesota, with what Steve Kerr said on the podium in both pregame and postgame, as well as Quinten Post and one Wardell Stephen Curry, plus De’Anthony Melton.

The full transcripts are behind the paywall down below, or can be found simply by going to our YouTube channel video interviews and their Comments…

(Post)’s the reason we’ve wanted a space-5 for a decade. It just changes the whole game when you have a 5 who can step out and shoot and opens up the floor. But biggest thing with QP is his defense has improved dramatically. He worked hard getting stronger over the summer and I think it’s really just a classic case of a young guy coming in and going to the G League and putting in the work and getting a taste of the action last year and then getting better. I mean, he’s just, it’s exactly what you want as a coach, somebody like Quinten who fills a role and then really embraces it and keeps getting better, so he’s just been really good for us.

Cat’s out of the bag: They have wanted a 5 that can shoot this whole time, after all, this entire Kevon Looney era.

But I do think a lot of it has to do with what they learned from the mothballing of Zaza Pachulia in the 2018 playoffs (coinciding with the advent of Looney) and, perhaps more importantly, the salary cap. I’ll delve into the latter a bit more on the next livestream, probably tonight.

So that’s why JaVale McGee 2.0 never happened. That’s also why I don’t think Daniel Gafford is a blip on the radar. I could be wrong, though.

Ergo, this is not necessarily an Internet rando squealing, “We need a big man!”

One of the space-5s a lot of Warriors fans have talked about is Myles Turner. Up until this trade season, his contract value, status and role on the Indiana Pacers has pretty much been locked in.

But now, due to Milwaukee’s brazen waiving of Damian Lillard and eating of huge cap space to get Turner, followed by the subpar performance of the Bucks so far, it looks like Turner could be available if the writing is indeed on the wall, as one of the more reliable Top Five news breakers of the NBA recently reported what a team GM or executive told them — my bad, I can’t remember which, but it was within the last week (one of Shams Charania, Marc Stein, Jake Fischer or Brett Siegel, for example, so not a random rumor by some Twitter aggregator, for sure).

If you know me, you know that I’ve been anti-“we need a big man” for quite some time, mostly due to those aforementioned cap sheet issues and, I’d call it, prudent fiscal management.

But then, last night, and really over the past couple weeks, something happened, as Tim Kawakami of the SF Standard observed, asking Kerr the above question under the context of QP’s impressive plus-minus so far.

I’m gonna nitpick, but that’s what I do when I analyze games on our livestream Watch Parties: QP couldn’t hit in clutch moments.

So yeah, he’s young and he’s learning. When grilled, again by Kawakami and by his own admission a “tough” question for QP on that podium, Post said of taking extra long to pull the trigger on that three that would’ve given the Warriors a 121-119 lead with 1:02 to go if it had splashed:

As a shooter, when you get a wide open look like that you sometimes take a breath to kind of make it more like a rhythm shot. And, looking back at it, I wish I would’ve just shot it, but I learned from it and it’ll fall next time.

The problem with the scared trigger finger, I’ll call it, is that the mistake compounded.

Steph took the next possession, probed the arc against Naz Reid and, as Rudy Gobert switched on to Curry with Reid still in tow and completely ignored QP after the stagger screen by Melton and QP, took a contested three over both Gobert and Reid.

Credit Reid, who did a solid job not biting on Steph’s fly-by fake and, along with Gobert, sold out on Curry. The shot rolled out, Rudy swallowed the rebound, outlet nicely to Donte DiVincenzo, who smartly took a calculated two-for-one with 28 seconds left.

Dagger, 123-118.

Guess who also completely ignored QP on that play? Yep, the guy who took the shot over two seven-footers instead of passing it to the other shooter on the team, who already had four threes.

And so by having deer-in-the-headlights, Post went from a potential game-winning three with a minute to go, to being disrespected by ballers who have done things at the biggest stages.

When asked, Curry respectfully brought this up:

I don’t ever coach the result or talk about just because he missed it, if there’s anything he should have done differently. The only thing, sometimes as a shooter, you just like to have that little pound dribble to get your rhythm back. That’s the only thing.

There’s also the ill-fated lefty drive from Post that wasn’t close, also against Gobert, during the 17-0 drought when Steph was on the bench. There was also the “hand grenade” he got from Jimmy Butler that, a push shot from the baseline that never had a chance.

Someone on the livestream asked, “Who’s our No. 3 scorer?” Well, OKC doesn’t have a No. 3 scorer, either, but they do have “big shot makers”. That’s the thing the Warriors don’t have in their identity right now.

I don’t think we’ll see that lineup again, even if Draymond Green hypothetically misses another game (let’s hope he’s back against Portland): Pat Spencer, Brandin Podziesmki, Moses Moody, Jimmy, QP.

Curry for Moody, Melton for Spencer, Gui Santos for Jimmy and Trayce Jackson-Davis for Post would also be in the mix towards the end of that nadir.

Incidentally, while we’re talking about that bad stretch from around the 9:00 to 6:00 mark of Q4 — still, later Curry was able to wipe that away with his heroics to actually steal the lead, 118-117, with 1:37 to play — after studying the play-by-play, these were the “egregious” mistakes:

• Those two hapless field goal attempts by Post, although both of them were late in the shot clock,

• Two really bad turnovers by Podziemski, although after the second one, Rob Dillingham made a poor pass to DiVincenzo to give it right back,

• Moody not staying in front of Terrence Shannon, Jr. and fouling him,

• Moody losing Reid in transition and, by the time he figured out he needed to guard Naz, running right into a Gobert pick,

• Dillingham getting a blow-by of Jimmy,

• Steph and Quinten not handling the right wing handoff between Naz and Donte — this was a go-to play for Chris Finch because Golden State had no answer for it all night (which should change when Green gets back),

• Jaden McDaniels beating Melton off the dribble and finding Rudy for a dunk as Trayce helped,

• Spencer missing a wide-open corner three after Steph got found him with a razzle-dazzle behind-the-back pass, then compounding it the other way as he forgot to guard the streaking Shannon, who was fouled by Podz.

This is going to sound mean, but there are distinct moments when youngsters like QP, Podz and Pat had center stage and hiccuped.

Not so for these Timberwolves not named Anthony Edwards, who was obviously out with an injury. They had several big shots made by different guys. At sixth in the standings, Minnesota is an excellent barometer of the team and cohesion, pretty much where the Warriors need to be.

And yet, I can still count those four losses (Milwaukee, Indiana, Portland and Orlando) attributed to “basketball impotence”, which an affliction of the vets:

Even notwithstanding this loss to the Wolves, instead of 13-13, we should therefore be 17-9 with those four giveaways due to “BI”, which is actually right where Minnesota is sitting in 6th, at 16-9.

And so my first overall thought is this: I know how QP feels. I’ve been there. I used to play at the biggest stages of local Asian tournaments: the Chinese New Year Tournament in Chinatown and the Cornerstone Tournament every July 4th weekend at St. Ignatius. Those were 20-minute halves, college rules. I was a star at the highest level — for about 15 of those minutes.

Yes, I had deer-in-the-headlights syndrome. I was Quinten Post.

I didn’t end up playing a ton of those tournaments, as my “career” pivoted towards being the “Poor Man’s Commish” of Dream League, as I’ve alluded to a million times on here.

But deer in the headlights ain’t gonna cut it. Not in a window that has Curry’s contract ending Summer 2027.

I guess you could say I’ve joined the Myles Turner bandwagon, but it’s not because I saw some tweet on Xitter and wanted to be with the cool kids.

But actually, I’m really on the Giannis Antetokuonmpo train, for sure. I’ll talk about it on the livestream tonight, but I’ve looked at the available players and this is the time for that. There aren’t that many superstars around $50-ish million that are seemingly available these days. If not, then Lauri Markkanen, whom we’ve written about several times on here in the past:

I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as Groundhog Day. In as little as a couple weeks, the flaws and lack of identity we saw against the Wolves will likely change into something none of us really can predict. It’s always moving targets in the NBA.

Things could evolve quickly and prove me wrong. I allow room for that. If we manage to go on a win streak or two before Jonathan Kuminga can be traded on January 15th, then maybe the changes are less drastic.

By the way, looking at the boxscore and understanding/respecting the momentum from the road trip that Kerr tried to ride as a wave into the Minnesota matchup, well, I just don’t know how Kuminga gets back into this rotation.

Sure, he could just start against Portland and Steve would slap me in the face that way, but with another forward coming back in Dray and I see Gui with just six minutes played and Gary Payton II even less, what’s the point of replacing those spots with JK? You would need a bigger identity shift if JK is to play meaningful minutes.

But the deer in the headlights thing, I really hope that doesn’t become a pattern against good teams.

Here’s the rest of the Kerr transcript that I have a few more comments on…

On seeing Ant’s potential during Team USA practices and camp:

A guy that talented, you always kinda want to experiment with, whether it’s on or off the ball, what does it look like if you have him as a screener? What does it look like if you play a small ball lineup with him? What does it look like if you have him handle the ball more often? All these things are really tantalizing when you’re a coach and you see a guy that talented. When I coached him, the roles were pretty defined, but he was our best player on that team and it was clear that he was entering new ground and he’s clearly one of the best players in the league.

I guess there’s a wide gap between No. 1 pick talents and No. 7 picks? As Coach Ricky Goodman says on X, there’s something happening behind closed doors, or maybe it’s really just this hard to install a turbo engine while the plane has been flying? More on this, below.

On the adjustment they made for QP in the Minnesota playoff series:

One of the things that we tried to do in that series was put QP on McDaniels and just figured, let’s see if Quinten can, if we can jumble up the matchups and have Quinten guard a wing. And his instinct immediately took him into the middle of the paint. I think it was the beginning of Game 2 and McDaniels got a wide open three from the corner. Quinten was immediately like, that’s my fault.

I admit, I’m getting a little impatient with Post. If we could only transplant Klay Thompson’s brain into QP’s, the way we would Gui’s into JK’s, we’d already have that fringe All-Star or, okay, let me call it a “bonafide consistent impact player” à la Melton,

Then again, it took Klay a few years. We don’t have a few years, though.

When asked about Pat’s ball-handling:

Having another ball handler on the floor with Pat or Melt, BP, having the floor spacing of Quinten, the game gets easier and it’s much easier to take care of the ball… We are a ball movement team. We always have been and when we can get it swung, we generally get pretty good looks at the rim.

I want to wait until Dray comes back to have a proper coalescing of the intended identity, but the above 1) reinforces the notion that Turner would be an upgrade to making the game “easier” and 2) reinforces me wondering how in the world JK can possibly crack the rotation.

Again, I don’t believe in Groundhog Day, but if the losing continues then I’ve got no choice but to wonder if there might be an alternative to this ecosystem, although Steph seemed to explain it pretty well here:

There would be some ramp-up time from Giannis or Myles or Lauri. I haven’t talked about Trey Murphy III on this website, yet, but I have in the Kuminga Thought Experiments video. And it was only the other day when I lampooned the “Fire Kerr” guys in the previous post. 🤷🏻‍♂️

But as Dray said, perhaps nearly exactly 365 days ago, if the team doesn’t start winning, there will be changes.

A lot of this is on Draymond, too. He is the biggest culprit (sufferer?) of the aforementioned “basketball impotence”, not that he can help it. JK might not be the only one destined for the chopping block. After all, Green and Kuminga’s salaries added together are in the vicinity of Giannis’.

As for Jimmy, I don’t know that there is a team in the NBA at all that wants to end up with Butler’s contract, so I’m not sure he could he used in a Giannis trade.

Like, did the Warriors not prove last night that they are this close 🤏 to being a 6th-seed and they did it without Draymond on either end? Without him, the ecosystem morphed into Steph and the Space-5 for one night. Jimmy even got involved, got the open three to that Space-5.

If the losing continues, then instead of drowning in the malaise, I will turn to curiosity with the trade deadline. That’s how I’m gonna deal with it. The NBA is fun, that way. Of course, I’ll still be rooting for the Warriors. Those ride-or-die hopes with whomever is on the roster on game day, that never fades.

Videos from MIN-GSW, then below the paywall are all the transcripts. At some point I’ll release the paywall so that Google spiders can crawl all the transcripts for documentation purposes:

🫶💙💛