Steve Kerr is returning to the Golden State Warriors. His top assistants are not.

Terry Stotts and Jerry Stackhouse, the two highest-ranking assistants on Kerr’s staff, are leaving the franchise after two years each in Golden State, according to ESPN’s Anthony Slater. Both men’s contracts reportedly expired after this season.

In both cases, the coaches are reportedly leaving to pursue head coaching opportunities, something that isn’t going to be available with the Warriors after Kerr signed a high-priced, two-year extension with the team.

Stotts held the title of lead assistant and offensive coordinator and joined the Warriors after stints as the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, Milwaukee Bucks and Atlanta Hawks. He reportedly informed Kerr he intended to leave late in the regular season and wished the team well:

"I enjoyed my time with Steve, the staff and players," Stotts said. "My two years there were fulfilling. Nothing but well-wishes."

Stackhouse was the Warriors’ defensive coordinator and previously worked as the head coach of Vanderbilt and the G League’s Raptors 905.

Tyler Kaufman via Getty Images

Those exits are in addition to Chris DeMarco, a longtime Warriors assistant who left in November to become the head coach of the WNBA’s New York Liberty.

Former New Orleans Pelicans head coach Willie Green is reportedly among the candidates to fill one of the multiple empty spots in the Warriors coaching staff, having previously worked under Kerr from 2016 to 2019.

The Warriors’ upheaval this offseason likely won’t be limited to the coaching staff, as the team is widely expected to pursue a major move while reworking the roster around Stephen Curry. That could very well involve moving on from Draymond Green, who acknowledged the possibility after the team’s season-ending loss in the NBA play-in tournament.

Steve Kerr will remain the head coach of the Golden State Warriors after signing a two-year extension with the team. That development would apparently be a surprise to Kerr a few weeks ago.

The Warriors coach told ESPN’s Wright Thompson he was “95 percent” certain about retiring ahead of his team’s play-in tournament game against the Los Angeles Clippers on April 15, reportedly saying “I think it’s over” the day before the game.

Thompson breaks down Kerr’s journey to that point in great detail, but a day later, Kerr had apparently changed his mind after the Warriors’ season-saving 126-121 win over the Clippers:

An assistant with a stat sheet said they'd led for only four minutes and six seconds. Everyone laughed and tried to stay in the moment. Steve looked over at me and spoke quietly, almost a whisper.

"I'm not leaving," he said.

The Warriors would go on to lose to the Phoenix Suns in the West’s final play-in game, ending their season outside the playoffs for the second time in three years. Kerr received widespread notice after cameras caught him telling Stephen Curry and Draymon Green 'I don't know what's going to happen next” as the game ended.

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While Kerr had apparently decided he wanted to stay by that point, his contract with the Warriors was expiring. He acknowledged the possibility the Warriors move on from him after the game, in an offseason where major change is clearly needed. Instead, the Warriors kept him and gave him a contract that will reportedly see him remain the highest-paid coach in the NBA.

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It remains unclear when the 60-year-old Kerr will actually retire. There was a revealing conversation on that front, though, as he and Thompson discussed former San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who officially stepped down last year after a debilitating stroke:

“For the past few years, Kerr has watched his mentor, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, struggle through this same decision. Pop once called Steve to tell him he'd finally decided to retire. Steve congratulated him on a Hall of Fame career. A week later Pop signed an extension with San Antonio. Popovich finally officially quit six weeks before our lunch, six months after a stroke diminished him physically. People who loved him had to show him the door, as gently as possible. That hurt Steve. He respects Popovich so much. He loved playing for him and coaching with him. He once told Gregg he was the finest man he'd ever known and thanked him for all he'd done for him. Pop smiled and said his feet were made of clay like everyone else's. Steve didn't believe it then. Now he does.

"I realized he couldn't do it," Kerr said. "He couldn't walk away."

When asked how he would avoid a similar fate, Kerr apparently wasn’t sure:

"How am I gonna feel exactly a year from now? Maybe two years from now? Because the job itself is so addictive. ... You wanna trust yourself but also be suspicious of your own motives. You don't want to walk away too early but you don't want to walk away too late. And you worry about what your life is gonna feel like ...

Whenever he does retire, he will likely be coaching a team significantly different from the one he helmed this season. The Warriors have been widely rumored to be gearing up for a superstar acquisition to maximize Curry’s final years with the team, a process which could see Draymond Green leave the organization.

Here’s how Milwaukee Brewers phenom Jacob Misiorowski opened Wednesday’s game against San Diego Padres outfielder Jackson Merrill:

• 102.6 mph fastball for a swinging strike

• 103.3 mph fastball for a swinging strike

• 102.9 mph fastball for a ball (just off the low-inside corner)

• 102.1 mph fastball for a foul

• 96.8 mph slider for a called strike

No one ever said baseball was supposed to be easy, but that’s just not a reasonable challenge. And yet, it was simply the tone setter for Misiorowski, who finished the night with 10 strikeouts in 7 scoreless innings, allowing only 4 hits.

Misiorowski maintained his velocity across the start, a rarity among MLB’s top flame-throwing starting pitchers. He hit 103.2 mph in his 93rd and final pitch of the night, striking out Nick Castellanos to end the seventh inning.

However, the night ended on a sour note, as Misiorowski went out for the eighth inning but called over the trainer while warming up. He left the game, but walked off under his own power and was smiling during the conversation on the mound so it seems unlikely there was a serious issue. It might be worth noting he left a game earlier this month due to hamstring cramping.

The Brewers went on to waste Misiorowski’s performance, as Brewers relief ace Abner Uribe allowed a three-run homer to Gavin Sheets in the ninth inning to give San Diego the win.

The start was Misiorowski’s follow-up to his gem against the New York Yankees last week, in which he threw the seven hardest pitchers MLB has ever recorded from a starter. He didn’t quite light up the radar gun this time around, by which we mean he merely threw the fifth-fastest pitch MLB has ever recorded from a starter.

There is noshortageofMisiorowskistats these days. All you really need to know is this type of arm is very farm from normal. No starting pitcher has ever thrown as hard as this since MLB started using advanced cameras to track velocity. We can’t say for certain he’s the hardest-throwing starter ever due to how the technology has changed over the decades, but you shouldn’t need precedent to recognize this kind of stuff as special.

Misiorowski’s ERA for the season now sits at 2.12. Over his past three starts, he has posted 29 strikeouts, 4 hits and 0 runs across 18 1/3 innings. Odds are no one will be questioning his All-Star selection this time if he makes it to the Midsummer Classic.

When it comes to NBA officials and the referees/umpires of other sports, the general rule of thumb is that fans knowing your name isn’t a good thing. That made the results of the National Basketball Players Association survey interesting.

The union publicly released the findings of its 2025-26 Referee Player Survey on Wednesday, with 411 players across all 30 teams rating the league’s collection of officials. All 73 refs were graded on a scale of 1 to 5.

The ratings were reportedly shared with the NBA league office in March and are presented as the official player recommendations for referee assignments for the 2026 NBA Playoffs.

The NBPA broke down the officials into three tiers, requesting that only Tier 1 and Tier 2 officials work the playoffs and only Tier 1 officials work the NBA Finals. Here are the groups:

Tier 1: Elite & Top Performers

Ray Acosta, Brent Barnaky, Curtis Blair, Tony Brothers, Nick Buchert, John Butler, James Capers, Kevin Cutler, Eric Dalen, Marc Davis, JB DeRosa, Mitchell Ervin, Jacyn Goble, Nate Green, Bill Kennedy, Courtney Kirkland, Karl Lane, Mark Lindsay, Tre Maddox, Ed Malloy, Phenizee Ransom, Dedric Taylor, Josh Tiven, James Williams, Sean Wright, Zach Zarba

Tier 2: Solid Performers

Brandon Adair, Derrick Collins, Sean Corbin, Mousa Dagher, Brian Forte, Scott Foster, Pat Fraher, Jason Goldenberg, David Guthrie, Matt Kallio, Marat Kogut, Sha'Rae Mitchell, Ashley Moyer-Gleich, Matt Myers, Andy Nagy, Brett Nansel, JT Orr, Gediminas Petraitis, JD Ralls, Kevin Scott, Aaron Smith, Jonathan Sterling, Ben Taylor, Scott Twardoski, Justin Van Duyne, CJ Washington, Leon Wood

Tier 3: Needs Improvement

Dannica Baroody, John Conley, Che Flores, Tyler Ford, John Goble, Robert Hussey, Intae Hwang, Simone Jelks, Biniam Maru, Suyash Mehta, Rodney Mott, Pat O'Connell, Jenna Reneau, Tyler Ricks, Natalie Sago, Jenna Schroeder, Brandon Schwab, Danielle Scott, Evan Scott, Michael Smith

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The NBPA also shared that Zach Zarba was ranked as the No. 1 ref overall in the NBA, with players from every team ranking him at least among the Top 12. Kevin Cutler also ranked highly, getting a No. 1 ranking from six different teams.

From the NBPA:

“I think officiating comes down to the person. I don’t think you can reform the calls themselves—people are human and they’re going to make mistakes,” said NBPA First Vice President Grant Williams at the State of the Game roundtable. “But the best officials in the league, according to the players, are the great communicators; the ones who understand when they’ve made a mistake. As long as you’re calling a game consistently, guys are willing to adapt. It’s about having control of the game while also respecting the players and their different personalities.”

The highest standard deviation belongs to perhaps the most maligned official in the NBA, Scott Foster. He was reportedly ranked as the top official by one team and had enough support to land in Tier 2.

Those results are somewhat at odds with Foster’s reputation, with his name comingupmorethana fewtimes over the years. His feud with the recently retired Chris Paul was part of NBA lore, and his “The Extender” nickname is well-known enough to receive a 4,000-word Reddit analysis last year.

But more than a few players think he’s somewhere between OK and good. There are also a pair of Tier 1 officials who have had their own recent incidents, with Tony Brothers getting called “completely unprofessional” by Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch and Devin Booker going after James Williams enough to get fined $35,000.

One other notable trend in the ratings is the fact that no women are in Tier 1 and only two — Sha’Rae Mitchell and Ashley Moyer-Gleich — are in Tier 2, compared to six in Tier 3. Che Flores, who is non-binary, is also in Tier 3. The NBPA partially addressed that, noting Moyer-Gleich and Mitchell reached Tier 2 because they “both received positive feedback from the players regarding improvement in their overall performance.”