Steve Kerr isn’t leaving Golden State just yet.
The longtime Warriors head coach agreed to a two-year contract to return to the team on Saturday, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. The 2026-27 season will mark his 13th season with the Warriors, and comes after speculation that Kerr may split with the team after they missed the playoffs this spring.
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The deal will reportedly keep Kerr as the highest-paid coach in the NBA, having previously led the pack with approximately $17.5 million per year on his last deal.
Kerr took over as the Warriors’ head coach in 2014, marking his first head coaching job in the league. Immediately, he helped the franchise embark on a dynasty-level run throughout the NBA. The Warriors won four NBA titles under his watch and reached the NBA Finals six times in eight years — including in each of his first five seasons at the helm. The Warriors went 73-9 during the 2015-16 campaign, too, which broke the all-time wins record set by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. Kerr was a member of that Bulls team, too.
But that Warriors dynasty now seems to be in its twilight years, at best. The team went just 37-45 and missed the playoffs for the second time in three years this spring.
In their season-ending loss in the NBA play-in tournament, Kerr had an emotional moment with stars Stephen Curry and Draymond Green — the last two real pieces of the Warriors’ championship runs — on the court, telling them he didn’t know what was happening next.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I love you guys to death,” Kerr was heard telling the duo. “Thank you. Appreciate you.”
Kerr admitted after that loss in the play-in tournament to the Phoenix Suns that a change might be coming, too, and he seemed at peace with that as a possibility. Kerr met with Warriors’ owner Joe Lacob and general manager Mike Dunleavy at the end of April, but the two sides weren’t in a rush to determine anything.
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The Warriors reportedly wanted Kerr to sign a multi-year extension with them this offseason rather than return for a farewell tour-type season, and Kerr has been conflicted for weeks. Green even predicted that Kerr wouldn’t be around next season.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Kerr said. “I still love coaching, but I get it. These jobs all have an expiration date. There’s a run that happens, and sometimes it’s time for new blood and new ideas and all that.
“If that’s the case, then I will be nothing but grateful for the most amazing opportunity any person could have to coach in front of our fans in the Bay, to coach Steph Curry, to coach Dray, the whole group. It may still go on, it may not. I don’t know at this point.”
Three weeks later, the Warriors got their answer. It figures to be only one part of their high-stakes offseason.
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