How new Warriors assistant coach Stackhouse looks to improve defense

While the Warriors were trudging through last season piling up mystifying losses, coach Steve Kerr was analyzing the operation. By season’s end, he had reached several conclusions, one being that his staff could use more gravitas.

After consulting with general manager Mike Dunleavy, Kerr set his sights on former NBA players who would command respect and not be afraid to get bullish – particularly in matters regarding defense.

Kerr interviewed several candidates before hiring Jerry Stackhouse, who fits that description like a tailored suit.

“The word from Mike and Steve was that they were looking to add a former player,” Stackhouse tells NBC Sports Bay Area. “And what (my teams) do on the defensive side of the ball is always showing himself well, whether it was in the D League or at Vanderbilt. The teams when I was in Memphis as well. So, this is just a great opportunity.”

Stackhouse, a two-time NBA All-Star, spent his 18-year career among players – including Charles Oakley and Zach Randolph – whose demeanor could be spelled in six letters: B-E-W-A-R-E. He’d put on his “mean mug” before tipoff and keep it in place until the final buzzer, fists ready to engage in the interim. Some folks who step onto the court mean business. “Stack” was business.

Upon retiring in 2013, Stackhouse turned his energy toward coaching. He took jobs with the Toronto Raptors – as head coach, he led their D-League team to a championship in 2017 – and the Memphis Grizzlies. When Vanderbilt University in 2019 offered a six-year contract to be their head coach, he accepted.

Stackhouse lasted five seasons, during which there were no five-star recruits, and the team never reached the NCAA Tournament. Two months after his dismissal in March, Kerr and Dunleavy reached out. Stackhouse joined them for dinner in Los Angeles, and they spent the next day studying video and discussing strategy. A couple weeks later, he was offered a job as an assistant coach. He will join Terry Stotts, Kris Weems and Kerr on the front bench.

Stotts is a respected offensive mind, while Stackhouse will be tasked with bringing solid defensive principles and an attitude that suggests they best be followed.

Asked about his vision for the defense, Stackhouse was quick with a response.

“Physical – that's the one word that I would say,” he says. “Physical. You’ve got to be able to scramble, you’ve got to be able to rotate, and you have to see things. A lot of that is kind of built in. We want to shy away from things that go against what we don't have built-in. That's my philosophy on the defensive side of the ball since I've been coaching.

“But you always want to see your personnel and adjust accordingly, not come in so rigid where we just want to do it a certain way. There are some special talents, and they don’t have to do it the same way everybody else does. You have to understand that. And sometimes, that’s where a coach can go wrong.”

Stackhouse, 49, believed in physicality as a player, so it’s logical that he would lean on it as a coach. This is a man who as a member of the Dallas Mavericks in the 2006 NBA Finals threw his 6-foot-6, 220-pound body into the shoulder/neck area of 7-foot-1, 320-pound Shaquille O’Neal to prevent a breakaway dunk. Shaq went sprawling into the photographers lining the baseline.

The result was a one-game suspension for Stackhouse, but O’Neal and his Miami Heat teammates got the message about transition defense, fortitude and a willingness to sacrifice.

It comes as no surprise, then, that Stackhouse is delighted to be aligned with Draymond Green, an elite defender whose physicality sometimes goes beyond the routine.

“We talked in Vegas,” Stackhouse says of checking in with Green two weeks ago. “We’re going to talk some more when we get there and really lock in. But a lot of the stuff that I want to implement, he does naturally. He's not the problem. That’s first and foremost. What he brings is his competitiveness. I can relate. All the way.”

The Warriors posted a 113.5 defensive rating in the 55 games Green played last season. In the 27 games he missed, the rating went up to a disastrous 121.1. The Stackhouse-Green alliance has the potential to improve on both marks.

Since winning the NBA Finals in 2022, Golden State has finished sixth (2022-23) and 10th (2023-24) in the Western Conference. Much of the blame can be placed on the defense, which posted the league’s No. 2 rating (106.6) in 2021-22 but tumbled to 14th (113.4) and 15th (114.5) the past two seasons.

It’s rational to believe the slide is related to the departure of lead assistant Mike Brown, who coordinated the defense for six seasons before leaving after the ’22 Finals to become head coach of the Sacramento Kings.

Aside from the disastrous 2019-20 season, when the Warriors finished 15-50, their worst defensive rating under Brown was 109.4.

It’s Brown’s shoes that Stackhouse is being asked to fill.

“I think on the defensive side of the ball, Steve and Mike were looking to maybe get a little bit more help there,” Stackhouse says. “When Mike left, things changed a little bit, going toward the middle of the pack on defense.

“You’ve got to be on a string, seeing man and ball – not locked into your man and having ‘oh (expletive)’ moments,” he adds. “You’ve got to be engaged. And it usually starts with transition defense. We want to make teams play against our half-court defense. I know pace is at a premium, but the best way to play a stout defense is if we can get back in transition and make them play in the half-court. I think this roster is capable of doing that.”

Kerr on numerous occasions last season, always after a loss, lamented the lack of grit exhibited by the Warriors. The defense would go soft or negligent or just plain indifferent.

There should be less of that with Stackhouse on the bench. Kerr is driven to make the Warriors a better team than in the past two seasons. And he knows, as Stackhouse does, the first step to fixing them means fixing their defense.

Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast