Steve Kerr Gives Emotional Answer About The Warriors Losing Andre Iguodala

Over the last five seasons, the Golden State Warriors have made it to five straight NBA Finals and have won three of championships. The Warriors are heading to this season weakened due to Kevin Durant and Andre Iguodala’s departure.

Steve Kerr was not surprised when Kevin Durant left the Warriors. But the head coach wasn’t prepared for what happened a few hours later. The team reached an agreement to trade forward/guard Andre Iguodala to Memphis.

Kerr, who spoke to NBC Sports Bay Area’s Monte Poole on The Warriors Insider Podcast on Tuesday, said the loss of Iguodala was the toughest in his entire coaching career.

“That was the most painful loss in terms of a personnel move that I’ve felt as a coach in my five years,” Kerr told The Warriors Insider Podcast. “Andre really embodied everything I tried to teach to our players in terms of the culture, the unselfishness, the sacrifice. This is why it’s not smart to be coach and GM at the same time. If you have both jobs, it’s been proven to be incredibly difficult. A coach looks at next year. A GM has to look at five years down the road.”

“Guys in this profession come and go pretty quickly. It’s a very fluid business,” Kerr said. “But for what Andre has meant to not only our team but to me personally, as a coach, for accepting his role, for mentoring younger players, for monitoring the bench and keeping everything going – the respect that the stars had for him combined with his mentoring of the younger players – Andre was the unsung hero of all of this… For him to move on was just devastating for me.”

Iguodala, 35, spent six years with the Warriors, going to the playoffs every season, reaching The Finals in the last five seasons, three of which ended in championships.