Kerr revered Spurs during down years

Long after Steve Kerr stopped playing for Gregg Popovich’s Spurs in 2003, he studied how his friend and mentor maintained a selfless, team-oriented locker room ethos — even as Popovich’s personnel changed year-toyear.

What Kerr gleaned was that the notion of an organizational culture shouldn’t disappear just because a group might not be winning. Kerr clung to that truth firmly the previous two seasons, when the Warriors’ dynasty gave way to lottery runs. Now, as Popovich oversees his own sub-.500 team, Kerr still sees San Antonio playing with the same togetherness and intentionality that was foundational to its twodecade run among the league’s heavyweights.

That’s why Kerr has little doubt that the Spurs, who are 12th in the Western Conference at 8-13 after beating the Warriors at Chase Center on Saturday, will return to national relevance soon enough. Winning pedigrees go much deeper than a team’s current record.

“I’ve seen (Popovich) coach every kind of team,” said Kerr, who served as an assistant under Popovich at the recent Tokyo Olympics. “His teams have morphed. Even his teams that were great, they changed styles as they needed to. The great thing about Pop is there’s always a perspective with his coaching.

“Even though he’s an unbelievable competitor … he also has a perspective where, if you’ve got a young team that’s not a championship contender, you make that philosophical shift. You face the reality of that, and then you do the best with what that means. I’ve had to do that somewhat the last couple of years, and it’s been a great experience for me. Just watching Pop over the years helped me prepare for that.”

In the past two seasons, the Warriors went a combined 54-83 as they missed the playoffs in back-to-back years for the first time since 2011-12. Over the past six-plus weeks, as Golden State re-emerged as one of the NBA’s best despite the continued absence of Klay Thompson and only minor offseason moves, some might have wondered: How did Kerr do it?

But by even asking that question, such skeptics were ignoring the fact that the Warriors’ identity didn’t evaporate just because they were struggling on the court. The motion principles, the joyful play, the defensive effort — they all were there last season, even as the team was vying for a play-in spot.

“It’s not easy, but that’s when you really learn how important your process is and how important your culture is,” said Kerr, whose Warriors are tied for the NBA’s best record at 19-4. “If you can’t maintain your culture during the down times, then you don’t really have a culture. It’s just dependent on winning. The culture has to survive losing stretches, and that’s the beauty of what Pop has built over the last 20plus years, almost 30.

“The stability, the daily ritual of, ‘We’re going to work, we’re going to do it together. We’re going to enjoy the process together.’ It made a dramatic impact on me, just being there and watching that.”

Injury updates: Forward Otto Porter Jr. missed the rough end of a back-to-back set Saturday with what the Warriors called “left foot injury management.” Rookies Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody remained on G League assignments, and forward Andre Iguodala missed his ninth straight game with a sore right knee.