Ron Adams: Assistant coach is team’s defensive guru.
Warriors assistant coach Ron Adams has never hired an agent. Why would he? Agents are paid to find clients the next job, and Adams has long been too consumed by the present to fret over the future.
In a league rife with individual agendas, Adams, 69, is entering his 24th season as an NBA assistant. That he has yet to hold the top seat is not because of a lack of respect from front offices. Two weeks ago, NBA general managers named Adams the league’s best assistant for the third straight season.
“I try to be a good company guy and do all the things that are necessary for a team to be successful,” Adams said after a recent practice. “Perhaps I’ve neglected to take a certain tack that would’ve been helpful to me getting a head job. I think knowing myself, my strengths and weaknesses, and what is expected of people at this level, I think I probably am where I should be.”
Adams is widely considered a defensive savant. When teams need an overhaul on that side of the ball and Adams is available, head coaches almost certainly give him a call. Pamphlets that Adams wrote on defensive X’s and O’s sit in the offices of coaches and GMs throughout the league. Players aren’t familiar with most assistants from opposing teams, but they tend to know Adams by reputation.
It is the selfless nature of defense that most resonates with Adams. As a guard at NAIA Fresno Pacific College in the late 1960s, he took more pride in deflecting a pass than making a jumper. Adams, who grew up on a farm in Fresno County, appreciated that defense comes down to something he knows well: effort.
“I think there’s a lot of beauty in defense,” Adams said. “It’s really the giving part of the game in many ways.”
In 1972, after three seasons as an assistant at his alma mater, Adams was named Fresno Pacific’s head coach at age 25. Over the next two decades, he bounced from bench to bench for six colleges, as well as a pro team in Belgium. It was during those years that Adams ironed out many of the core defensive strategies he still uses today.
By the time Steve Kerr accepted Golden State’s head coaching job in the spring of 2014, Adams was one of the NBA’s prized defensive architects. Kerr, who had shared a bench two years earlier with Adams at All-Star Weekend’s rookie-sophomore game, was thrilled to hear from friend Sam Smith — author of the best-selling 1992 book, “The Jordan Rules” — that Adams might leave the Boston Celtics to be within driving distance of his native Fresno County.
Because Kerr streamlines practices to keep players fresh, Adams doesn’t necessarily have as much time to teach the Warriors his system as he did in previous stops. Therein lies his brilliance: Adams distills complex defensive arrangements into quick, digestible installments — all while being precise about screens, footwork and angles.
“With the time that Ron has, he does a tremendous job of maximizing things and getting the most out of our guys on a daily basis on that end of the floor,” said associate head coach Mike Brown, a defensive guru in his own right. “To be able to watch just his time management, his preparation and how he teaches it with the time that he has, that’s been a learning experience for me.”
More than an elite tactician, Adams is an ideal fit for Golden State’s egalitarian ethos. He is detail-oriented without being overbearing. When players rib him for his age or eccentricities, Adams chuckles and fires back. Seldom does someone suggest a tweak to the defensive scheme without Adams giving it meaningful thought.
A month shy of his 70th birthday, Adams makes a point to keep his job in perspective. Basketball is not a matter of life and death. After practices, he pulls aside players to ask about their families or outside interests. Adams stays up on current events and writes poetry on occasion.
“Whether it’s coaches or players, he takes a genuine interest in who they are as people,” player development coach Chris DeMarco said. “That’s probably the greatest thing about Ron, at least to me. He’s obviously talented as a coach. You can look at his success, especially defensively and all that, but he’s just very caring off the court.”
Long known for teaching young squads the finer points of defense, Adams has embraced a new challenge with the Warriors: getting a cast of All-Stars to care as much about stopping their man as hitting the open three-pointer. Golden State has twice led the league in defensive efficiency in Adams’ three years in the Bay Area. Last season, it topped the NBA in opponent field-goal percentage (43.5) and opponent threepoint field-goal percentage (32.4).
Three straight trips to the NBA Finals, including two title, have been the high point of a career that has spanned 49 years, seven colleges and eight NBA teams. Those close to him reckon that he has as much energy as he did when he was a promising young coach.
“I’m going to keep rolling until the end of the year,” said Adams, who mulls the possibility of retirement each offseason. “Hopefully, I can make this marathon.”
Sitting a few feet away at the Warriors’ practice facility, video intern Luke Loucks shook his head at the mention of Adams stepping away from the sideline.
“Don’t joke around, Ron,” Loucks said. “You’re going to be coaching for 10 more years.”