Longtime Warriors coach Steve Kerr is tired of NBA referees missing traveling violations.

After Golden State’s 119-101 win over the Charlotte Hornets on Monday at Spectrum Center, in which some blatant traveling violations were missed, Kerr – who earned a technical foul after complaining about the issue – fully unleashed his complaints about the league while anticipating being slapped with a worthwhile fine.

“I don’t understand why we’re not teaching our officials to call travel in this league,” Kerr told reporters. “They do a great job, they work their tails off, they communicate well, but I see five, six travels a game that aren’t called. We had four ourselves in Philadelphia [on Saturday vs. the 76ers], none of them were called. You know it’s a problem when there’s like a hundred fans in the stands and every coach on the sideline – everybody’s doing that [traveling violation signal]. 

“Everyone’s seeing it, so we’re clearly not teaching, as a league, our officials to look at the feet. And I’ve made that clear to the league. Maybe I’ll hear back from them after these comments – for the good of the game. The entire game is based on footwork. For the good of the game, we need to enforce traveling violations. And we’re not doing it. I don’t understand why.”

“I’ve made that clear to the league. Maybe I’ll hear back from them after these comments.”

Steve Kerr criticized NBA officials for missing traveling calls after his tech tonight 😳

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— Warriors on NBC Sports Bay Area (@nbcswarriors.bsky.social) March 3, 2025 at 8:20 PM

Kerr has been around the NBA since his rookie 1988-89 season, so he knows what a traveling violation looks like.

Monday night’s officiating crew of Mark Lindsay, Michael Smith and Andy Nagy simply let the basketball lifer down. And to Kerr’s point, some obvious calls truly were missed.

bro 😭😭😭 https://t.co/Ihr5WQpX8I pic.twitter.com/sYyUzJdtVL

— QuintenPostMuse (@QPostmuse) March 4, 2025

Golden State’s coach fully understands that NBA refs are watching for so much on every individual play and are only booed and never cheered for. But Kerr, as usual, is speaking out for change.

“Every time I watch tape, there’s three or four plays a game where the whole bench, fans, everyone sees it,” Kerr reiterated. “I just think we can do a better job. It’s about the way we’re teaching them. These guys are awesome. They got brutal jobs and have a million things to watch. But footwork is the entire basis of the game. We need to call traveling. It’s going to be a much better game if we clean it up.”

Kerr accepts the fact that he’ll likely have to pay for his harsh comments. However, the 59-year-old believes his complaining is well worth it.

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