Ranking Steve Kerr's Most Impressive Coaching Feats After Win No. 600

Steve Kerr won his 600th game as an NBA head coach on Monday when the Golden State Warriors beat the Washington Wizards.

He became the 28th coach to reach that milestone and just the seventh to do it with one franchise, joining Gregg Popovich (Spurs), Jerry Sloan (Jazz), Erik Spoelstra (Heat), Red Auerbach (Celtics), Red Holzman (Knicks) and Phil Jackson (Lakers).

We had to leave off some impressive coaching feats to limit this to five. Some will argue the 16-1 2017 playoff run has to be here, and I can see that considering it's the most dominant playoff run of all time. Some other individual playoff series triumphs could be spotlighted, such as the 3-1 comeback against OKC (2016) and the 3-2 comeback against Houston (2018).

I'll admit the last two spots are more open for debate, but the top three feel pretty set in stone.

5. Fourth-Fastest to 600

It took Kerr just 943 games to reach 600 wins. Only three coaches got there with fewer games: Phil Jackson (805), Pat Riley (832) and Gregg Popovich (887).

That's incredible company, and Kerr acknowledged in Monday's postgame press conference that it's the talent of the players that did the heavy lifting.

Even if that's true, there's an alternate universe in which Stephen Curry never gets fully unleashed and the three-point revolution takes much longer to happen without Kerr's coaching.

Instead, Kerr helped make Curry an all-time great, and the Warriors went on one of the great five-year runs in NBA history.

It's been a bumpy ride since—with one more title but a lot of disappointment as well—but that doesn't take away from what Kerr built.

4. Olympic Gold

The United States men's basketball team is always expected to win gold at the Olympics, so for some this won't seem like an impressive feat.

But this accomplishment is likely to age well.

The rest of the world is catching up to the U.S. One could argue America's top rivals were stronger than ever for the 2024 Olympics.

It all came to a head in the semis when Serbia shot the lights out for three quarters, taking a 13-point lead into the fourth.

The U.S. stormed back for a victory that is credited mostly to Curry (36 points). It's hard to pinpoint exactly what Kerr changed to make that comeback happen, but his "let's not panic" mindset had a positive impact.

Of course the Americans also got a scare in the final before Curry's four three-pointers in the last three minutes buried France. The first of the four was a played specifically installed to get Curry a good look in a big moment. Kerr deserves credit for going to that play when it was needed most.

3. 73 Regular-Season Wins

It didn't end in a championship, but that shouldn't take away from Kerr's coaching during the 2015-16 season.

The Warriors fully unlocked Curry's potential, which resulted in one of the greatest individual seasons of all time, as Curry averaged 30.1 points on outrageous 50/45/90 splits.

Kerr and the Warriors pushed to beat the 1995-96 Bulls' record of 72 regular-season wins, and they did it with Draymond Green having the best season of his career and Thompson making his second All-NBA team.

No team has won more than 68 games in a regular season since. With the wear and tear of an NBA season leading to more injuries and rest days than ever before, this record feels like it won't be broken for decades.

2. First-Year Championship

Kerr took over a 51-win team that lost in the first round of the playoffs and immediately transformed it into a 67-win juggernaut that won the championship.

He made two major decisions that changed the trajectory of the franchise.

He installed a motion offense with less pick-and-roll that led to more efficient scoring. The Warriors took 24.8 three-pointers in Mark Jackson's final season as head coach. In Kerr's first season, that number jumped to 27.0. But just as importantly, the Warriors' field-goal percentage went up 1.6 percent year over year because Golden State got more layups taking advantage of opponents overplaying Curry and Thompson for fear of their perimeter shooting.

He also put Green in the starting lineup over David Lee, which made the Warriors better defensively and in transition.

The rest is history. The Warriors faced a 2-1 deficit in the Finals before Kerr chose to start Andre Iguodala over Andrew Bogut. The moved paid off, allowing Golden State to win its first title in 40 years.

1. 2022 Title

The 2022 team did not have the most talent in the league, but Kerr pushed the right buttons to win an unlikely championship.

Perhaps the most important development that year was empowering Andrew Wiggins to be a two-way star. He got his one and only All-Star selection that year, and his defense in particular was fantastic throughout the playoff run.

Still, the Warriors faced a 2-1 deficit in the Finals against Boston, and Kerr had to pull all the right strings in a virtual must-win game. He played Curry a 2022 postseason-high 41 minutes but paced him well enough so that he could score 43 points. He played Wiggins 43 minutes and Thompson 41 minutes. Despite some concern about the offense's spacing with Looney on the floor, Kerr played Looney 28 minutes, and he responded with six points, 11 rebounds and a game-high plus-21 plus/minus.

The Warriors road the momentum from that win to their fourth title in eight years.