Warriors' Steve Kerr complains about lack of traveling calls

Kerr got a technical during the third quarter of Monday's 119-101 win over the Charlotte Hornets for complaining about uncalled traveling violations. Specifically, Kerr seemed to take issue with LaMelo Ball taking too many steps on his drives to the hoop.

After the game, Kerr made the uncalled traveling calls the centerpiece of his postgame news conference. He told reporters he thought referees "do a great job" and "work their tails off" but disregard the traveling rule.

"You know it's a problem when there are like a hundred fans in the stands and every coach on the sideline when I'm watching film and everyone is (signaling for traveling). ... We need to enforce traveling violations, and we are not doing it and I don't understand why."

Kerr didn't exempt his own team, claiming he'd seen the Warriors get away with four uncalled traveling violations in their Saturday loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. Still, they've committed 25 travels on the season, the third-fewest in the NBA this season, three more than the Los Angeles Lakers and four more than the New Orleans Pelicans.

This may mean that the Warriors and Lakers are both savvy about taking too many steps. Or it might mean referees give superstars like Steph Curry and LeBron James a lot of leeway in their interpretation of the traveling rule and the nebulous definition of a "gather."

While they've cleaned it up this season, the Warriors had a serious problem with traveling in the 2022-23 season. They were third in the NBA in traveling violations, with Klay Thompson, Jordan Poole and Curry traveling 22, 21 and 20 times, respectively. This season, no Warriors has traveled more than four times.

Perhaps Kerr, 59, one of the NBA's oldest coaches, is simply a traditionalist. But Kerr also may see a competitive advantage. When coaching a team that doesn't travel much, it's in Kerr's best interest for the referees to be stricter with teams that do walk with the ball. If it leads to just one more traveling call in the Warriors' favor, Kerr's fine for his technical foul will be money well spent.