Who's The Greatest Coach In Golden State Warriors History?

In this series, we’ll take a look at the illustrious list of head coaches in each NBA franchise’s history. To make a case for ‘greatest coach,’ we’ll look at win-loss record, player development, and (most importantly) team accomplishments under that coach’s tutelage.

The Warriors franchise has been around since the NBA was born. As a matter of fact, it was the Warriors (then based in Philadelphia) who won the first-ever NBA championship in 1947.

Over the next 30+ years, the team would change its base of operations (going from the East Coast to sunny San Francisco) but not its status as a playoff contender. However, the Warriors would fall upon hard times in the three decades that came after, becoming an afterthought time and time again at the end of the regular season.

Slowly but surely, the Warriors planted seeds for future greatness when they assembled a fearsome core via the NBA Draft and hired a multi-titled journeyman as their new head coach in 2014. A half decade later, the Warriors had morphed into a juggernaut that the NBA had never seen before.

Was the coach of this era the greatest in Warriors history, or is some other head coach from yesteryear more deserving of that title?

Here’s a deep cut for NBA fans: Eddie Gottlieb. Nicknamed “The Mogul” for his acumen as a promoter and organizer, Gottlieb led the Warriors to the inaugural NBA championship and steered the team to five more postseason appearances after that.

When the team won the 1975 NBA title as the Golden State Warriors, Al Attles was at the helm. His stint as Warriors head coach began rather memorably as he functioned as a playing coach during the 1970-71 season. Players like Rick Barry and John Lucas thrived under Attles’ leadership in the 70s.

The Warriors would not come near the championship picture again for a whopping 40 years. The trio of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green deserve plenty of credit for the team’s re-emergence, but Steve Kerr was the tactician who employed an aesthetically pleasing, fundamentally sound system that yielded four NBA titles over a seven-year period.

Kerr easily gets the nod as greatest Warriors coach ever. The likes of Gottlieb and Attles walked so that Kerr could run an offense that shook the NBA’s foundations and ushered in a new era of basketball.