Warriors:
Still on course, even without their rudder
Head coach Steve Kerr undergoes a procedure to repair his spinal-cord leak.
SALT LAKE CITY — Bob Myers stood with his back against the wall of a hotel hallway, a bank of cameras and reporters circling him, as he was asked to give an update on the health of his good friend Steve Kerr.
You could tell it was the last place the Warriors’ general manager wanted to be. You could tell he was trying to figure out the best way to handle all of this.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, guys,” he said at one point.
“There’s no plan for this. You listen, you care, you support. If anyone’s got a better way to do it, I’m happy to listen.”
This is unprecedented territory. There have been other cases of a coach taking the No. 1 job on an interim basis while a head coach is ill, such as Bruce Arians subbing with the Indianapols Colts for most of the 2012 season while Chuck Pagano underwent leukemia treatment.
But if there’s a case of a head coach having to step away in the midst of a postseason, I can’t remember it.
The Warriors are trying to figure out how best to handle this odd, troubling situation — at the same time that they’re trying to win games.
They have tried to control the message, to stop the incessant questions about Kerr and get away from daily updates on a problem that has no timetable. Acting head coach Mike Brown has politely deferred to Myers on questions about Kerr’s health. Myers has provided occasional updates.
That careful messaging was blown up over the weekend when Joe Lacob did an interview with Bloomberg Radio. At the end of a 32-minute conversation that was mostly about the greatness of Lacob’s business acumen, the team’s principal owner dropped this:
“Hopefully, it was solved yesterday. He had another procedure. … It’s very unusual, I believe. I have a medical background, so I know a little bit about this. I’ve never really heard of many people having this problem for this long. We feel really bad for him. …
“We just have to be in his court here and support whatever it takes for him to get back, and I’m sure they will eventually solve it. Hopefully sooner rather than later, and hopefully we’ll have him coaching on the court sooner rather than later.”
The message from Dr. Lacob (bachelor’s degree in biological sciences, master’s in public health, venture-capital investment in medical technologies) sent everyone scrambling to figure out exactly what it meant about Kerr’s recovery. Which is why Myers found himself holding court in a hotel hallway Sunday morning.
Myers confirmed that Kerr had a procedure done at Duke University on Friday. Kerr has had previous procedures at Duke involving blood patches to repair the spinal-fluid leak. Myers thought this latest work was similar to past ones.
But other than confirming the action taken, Myers couldn’t provide any updates. Because there aren’t any. Kerr is seeing the best specialists in the country, they’re trying to fix his problem, and everyone is crossing their fingers, hoping and praying that he returns to full health.
“I just want him to get better, for him more than as the coach of the team,” Myers said. “He’s now dedicated to the pursuit of getting better. Whereas before his focus was us, our team.”
The talent in the organization, the foresight of its leaders and the culture that Kerr created have sustained the Warriors during this unusual time. The team is really, really good. Brown, who was hired in the offseason, has been a head coach, with dozens of playoff games under his belt, and Myers and Kerr knew he could do the job if needed. Kerr created an environment in which everyone has ownership and accountability and knows what to do in a time of crisis. Which this is.
“When you win, it helps,” Myers said. “You build equity. Mike’s building equity as our acting coach. Our players are building equity by handling their responsibility. We will have adversity, and that will be the test. A loss could be right around the corner. When that happens, we all have to be better than before, because our leader isn’t here. … That will be the challenge. The test will be how we respond.”
Brown has responded beautifully. He has the perfect demeanor to be pushed into this fraught situation; he’s calm, easygoing and detail-oriented. He knows what he’s doing. And he’s enjoying himself. On the bench, addressing the players, he’s invariably smiling.
But in a decade, the Warriors have gone from “We Believe” to “We Expect.” If and when the team loses a game, Mike Brown will face criticism. He will be guilty of not being Steve Kerr.
There is a lot of interest in Kerr’s health, and not merely because he’s a great coach. People who know him adore him; people who don’t know him can sense what a good person he is. There’s a level of compassion that goes deeper than love for a sports team.
No one knows when Kerr will be back — or even if he will be back. No one knows whether this is a long-term situation that could last beyond a few months. As Myers said, there’s no plan.
There’s only hope. Hope for a good man to get better and live a full life. And to perhaps return to coaching, though that is a secondary concern.