CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With just under four minutes left in the third quarter on Monday night, Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo Ball tried to create an angle for an entry pass to Jusuf Nurkić and, in the process, picked up the basketball and appeared to skip forward an extra step with it.
Here is the possession. Watch Ball’s feet before he whips a pass into the lane.
In the grand scheme, this was a relatively meaningless moment in a relatively easy 119-101 road win for the Golden State Warriors. But the lack of a travel call had Warriors coach Steve Kerr fuming. In response, he whipped down the stack of papers he had in his hand, earning a technical foul.
Kerr then bolted to the scorer’s table, continued to scold officials for letting Ball get away with it and even pointed into the lower bowl at a few fans who also were signaling for a travel.
“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 it),” Kerr said. “Everyone is seeing it. So we are not teaching, as a league, our officials to look at the feet.”
Kerr estimated he sees “five or six travels a game that aren’t called.” He watched video of the Warriors’ loss on Saturday in Philadelphia and said his team had four travels that weren’t called.
“Everyone sees it,” Kerr said. “I just think we can do a better job. It’s about the way we are teaching it. These (officials) are awesome. They have brutal jobs and they have a million things to watch. But footwork is the entire basis of the game, and we need to call traveling. It will be a much better game if we clean it up.”
Steve Kerr received a technical tonight for yelling at the officials for missing a travel. He talked at length postgame about the issue: “Footwork is the basis of the game. We need to call traveling. It’ll be a much better game if we clean it up.” pic.twitter.com/6uaVEh9nr2
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) March 4, 2025
Kerr has long voiced his displeasure at the lack of traveling calls in the NBA, dating back to a 2016 radio interview when he made many of the same points, calling it an extra “unfair” advantage for the offense.
“The rules are already sort of geared towards the offense — you can’t handcheck, you can’t put a hand on a guy or it’s a foul,” Kerr said. “We give so many advantages to the offense; to let them travel and to let them carry the ball is kind of ridiculous to me.”
Kerr said he has brought this issue to the competition committee and made his feelings heard to NBA commissioner Adam Silver.
“Maybe I’ll hear back from them after these comments,” Kerr said Monday night. “But for the good of the game, we need to enforce traveling violations.”
(Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
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