Hope that procedure will relieve coach’s back pain and headaches

SALT LAKE CITY — Warriors head coach Steve Kerr is “on the path to recovery” after undergoing a spinal-cord-leak procedure on his back, general manager Bob Myers said Sunday morning.

“It’s hard to answer some of this because even the doctors aren’t entirely sure of recovery time,” Myers said at the team hotel. “That’s why we’ve been a little indefinite about everything. We don’t know. But the procedure went well, as far as we know. Now it’s a case of how well it takes and when he might or might not be back.”

Kerr has been on indefinite hiatus from the bench for the past week to seek a solution to

his chronic pain, which stems from a spinal-fluid leak incurred during back surgery in July 2015. Myers said the new procedure, which was performed Friday at Duke University, was “similar in nature” to other procedures Kerr has had.

Kerr was still at Duke when Myers spoke to him on the phone after the Warriors’ Game 3 win over the Jazz on Saturday night. Though he is optimistic that Kerr will heal, Myers is unsure when Kerr will return to the bench.

“I wish we had some kind of solution and we were progressing and I could say he’s going to be back, but we just can’t say that right now,” Myers said. “When the day comes that we can make a determination, we will tell you.”

During a radio interview Friday with Bloomberg, Warriors majority owner Joe Lacob said he hoped Kerr would be back “sooner rather than later.” Myers, who talks with Kerr daily, wasn’t ready to quantify what sooner could mean.

“I’m optimistic about his recovery,” Myers said. “I don’t know what that means, ‘sooner or later.’ … I’ll go back to what I said earlier: I think he’s going to recover fully. I just don’t know when. Nor does he. And I don’t think the doctors want to put a timeline on it right now.”

In Kerr’s absence, acting head coach Mike Brown has led the Warriors to five straight wins. Brown will try to lead Golden State, which has started the playoffs 7-0 for the first time in franchise history, to a sweep of the Jazz in the Western Conference semifinals Monday night.

The team hopes to have a better idea of Kerr’s status after it returns to the Bay Area. At this point, the team is more concerned about Kerr’s longterm health than whether he will return to the bench this postseason.

“This is one of the best people that I’ve ever met,” Myers said. “... I just can’t wait. I will be so happy when he’s better — for him and his family and everyone that’s close to him. He’s a great human being, and my hope is that, with this time off, we figure it out, the doctors figure it out and he can get back to, first, life. Just enjoying his life.”

Added forward Kevin Durant: “We all care about him and worry about him. Knowing Coach, he wants us to focus on the task at hand. Once Bob and Mike Brown and the rest of the staff gets (an) update, they tell us. But for the most part, we’re always thinking about him and praying he gets better.”