Barber: Warriors owner Joe Lacob not doing team any favors

SALT LAKE CITY

A Warrior broke ranks with the rest of the team Friday, but he will not be punished by management. Because he is management. He’s the big boss, the guy with the first bio in the team media guide and the final sign-off on important hires and fires.

Joe Lacob took to the radio and provided the world with an unexpected medical update on Steve Kerr.

It is something the Warriors had studiously and adamantly avoided, ever since Kerr stepped away from his coaching duties on April 23. Kerr, general manager Bob Myers and interim coach Mike Brown all have kept to the same message: The head coach will return when he is feeling better - clearly feeling better, for an extended period of time. Until then, we should all respect Kerr’s privacy and avoid the emotional rollercoaster of, “He’s feeling better! He’s feeling worse again. He’s feeling better again!”

Until Friday, the organization had done a remarkable job of staying on message. Questions about Kerr’s physical status began to dry up because Brown, whenever he was asked, would politely refer such queries to Myers. And Myers wasn’t talking much.

It didn’t take long for all of us to get the message. There was no timetable for Kerr’s return, and no point in daily progress reports.

Then the owner and CEO took a chisel to the unified front.

The strange thing is, Lacob’s bombshell about Kerr was completely unprovoked by the hosts of Bloomberg Radio’s “The Business of Sports.” Emphasis on “business.” The interview, posted (regretfully?) by the Warriors on their SoundCloud page, is more than 30 minutes long. Lacob talks about growing up poor, about new media and the structure of the Warriors organization and the role of venture capital in sports. He even laughs at himself a bit over his infamous “light-years” comment.

The half-hour was nearly done when the hosts asked Lacob about the debilitating complications Kerr has suffered since undergoing back surgery in the summer of 2015.

“In his case, for whatever reason, they just haven’t been able to solve that problem,” Lacob said. “Hopefully it was solved yesterday, he had another procedure.”

Ding! Ding! Ding! Breaking news. And it was followed by a prognosis.

“We just have to be in his court here and support whatever it takes for him to get back, and I’m sure they will eventually solve it,” Lacob continued. “Hopefully sooner rather than later, and hopefully we’ll have him coaching on the court sooner rather than later.”

Cheerfully vague, yes, but the CEO’s suggestion changed the ongoing dialogue. No longer was Kerr’s return to coaching an open question. Now it was “hopefully sooner rather than later.” Could he be back for the Western Conference finals? For the NBA Finals?

Suddenly, after one careless remark by the boss, all those questions are back on the table.

Let’s be clear about one thing. As a sportswriter - and as a proxy for sports fans - I welcomed Lacob’s comments. Information is the currency in which we trade. Steve Kerr is arguably the most important figure in the Warriors organization, and one of the Bay Area’s most interesting sports personalities. Of course we want to absorb every morsel of information about his health, and news of a recent medical procedure was a gift.

But Lacob was being unfair when he loosened his lips - unfair to Kerr, and to others in the building.

Imagine Saturday night from Kerr’s perspective. From all indications, he was still in the hospital at Duke. He certainly watched the Warriors’ gritty 102-91 win against the Jazz in Game 3 of their conference semifinal series, probably spoke to a few close associates afterward. But suddenly, instead of Kevin Durant’s brilliant 38-point game, everyone is buzzing about Lacob’s interview and the possibility of Kerr’s imminent return.

How galling that must have been to the coach. Not only an invasion of his privacy, but a contradiction to his athlete’s ethos of putting the team first and brushing aside his own discomfort - as he has been doing for months.

Imagine it from Brown’s perspective. Practically every day he has been telling reporters that no updates are forthcoming. Then the guy who signs his checks is doing everything but posting pics of Kerr’s X-rays.

Most of all, imagine it from Myers’ perspective. He is in the middle of a playoff run, a stretch that could resurrect the Warriors’ reputation after last year’s tragic collapse in the NBA Finals. He’d love to watch practice from the shadows and do the occasional radio show to talk about how smart it was to sign JaVale McGee and Matt Barnes.

Instead, Myers stood in a carpeted hallway Sunday morning in the elegant hotel where the Warriors are staying here, his back literally against the wall. Surrounded by cameras, phones and recorders, he earnestly and patiently tried to extract his team from this small predicament.

Joe Lacob had lobbed a grenade into the foxhole. Now Bob Myers was falling on it.

“I wish I could be more definitive,” Myers said. “… But if I knew an answer to any of these questions, I’d be thrilled for him as a person. But I don’t know.”

“I wish I could say we had some kind of solution and we were progressing, and I could say he’s gonna be back,” Myers said. “But we just can’t say that right now. And if the day comes where we make a determination one way or the other, we will tell you, with his blessing.”

“I mean, I’m optimistic about his recovery. I don’t know what that means, sooner than later,” Myers said when I asked if he shared Lacob’s optimism. “… You could go down the line of what procedure he had done, and how long it takes to take effect, how long it takes symptoms to improve. But I don’t know the answer of sooner or later.”

At one point, Myers stopped himself mid-sentence and, a tone of exasperation in his voice, said: “I don’t know what I’m doing, guys. There’s no plan for this. Think about our coach not being there. I just … You listen, you care, you support. But if anybody’s got a better way to do it, I’m happy to listen.”

As Myers spoke, it was clear he had nothing to add to Lacob’s revelation - nothing of substance, anyway, or at least nothing that didn’t carry the potential to create intrigue within the team. He was trying to get back to the protocol established before Lacob spoke to Bloomberg.

The Warriors play Game 4 here tonight. They will probably win and advance to the next round, another step toward professional salvation. Considering all they’ve endured this season, from the integration of Durant to Kerr’s illness, they have done an amazing job of tuning out distractions. It can’t be easy, though, when the owner becomes one of those distractions.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.