San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Kerr learned well from Popovich
Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich are long-time BFFs, wine-sipping buddies, Olympic coaching cohorts, and even running mates on the imaginary Popovich/Kerr presidential ticket.
But it’s fair to say that for the two men whose teams meet Sunday at Chase Center, it was not friendship at first sight.
In 1999, Kerr was coming off a three-peat run with the Chicago Bulls, where he was a valued rotation player. The Bulls were dismantling, so they signed-and-traded Kerr to the San Antonio Spurs, where Popovich was entering his second full season as head coach.
The two had never met. Kerr’s first impressions of Popovich?
“Tough, no-nonsense, rigid, very single-minded in terms of winning,” Kerr said in a recent interview. “It was a very different offense and a very different style from (Bulls head coach) Phil Jackson, so I struggled down there, that first year especially.”
Kerr, kicking back outside the Warriors’ locker room after a practice, clearly enjoyed talking about his quarter-century friendship with Popovich. In developing his own coaching style, and world view, Kerr has stolen liberally from Popovich, who last week passed Don Nelson to become the NBA’s winningest all-time coach.
The Warriors and their fans can thank Popovich, indirectly, for the long run of success since Kerr took over eight seasons ago. Popovich may have even nudged Kerr toward the Warriors. I asked Kerr if he consulted Popovich when Kerr was deciding between the Knicks and Warriors.
“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,” Kerr said.
Less enthusiastic was Kerr in 1999 when he was exiled to San Antonio. Still in the prime of his career, Kerr was homesick for his previous coach ( Jackson), his previous coach’s offense (the Triangle) and his previous role.
“I was pouting,” Kerr said of his early days under Popovich. “Things weren’t going my way.”
Kerr loved the Bulls’ Triangle, with its motion and passing and on-the-fly creativity. With the Spurs, Kerr’s role was to camp out beyond the arc and cast off the occasional 3, while mostly dumping the ball into the post to David Robinson and Tim Duncan.
Kerr’s playing time that season dipped from 22 minutes per game to 17. After taking 130 3-pointers in 50 games with Chicago the previous season, he took only 80 in 44 games that season in San Antonio. The NBA’s all-time leader in 3-point accuracy, Kerr’s percentage that season fell from 44% to 31%.
“I did not play well at all,” Kerr said.
But the Spurs were winning, Kerr was in the rotation, and the pouting vet and the drillsergeant coach began to bond.
“I was definitely Pop’s kind of person,” Kerr said. “He really was very particular about the kind of people he brought into the program, and it’s one of the reasons he and I have been so close over the years. We see the world in a similar fashion, we see the game in a similar fashion.
“Even though I didn’t really click with the way we played, and I didn’t play very well, I still loved being part of the program, and the team, and just seeing how he operates.”
Something was working. The Spurs won the NBA championship. Popovich brought Kerr back for another season, and made subtle but Kerrfriendly changes to the offense.
At the time Kerr had thoughts of someday becoming a coach, so he was taking mental notes, and journaling his experiences. He was fascinated by the difference in style between Jackson and Popovich. Both are notably quirky, innovative and adept at creating strong team unity.
“It was interesting,” Kerr said. “Phil did a lot of bonding stuff at practice. We would do breathing exercises as a team, he would do some really unusual team-bonding stuff, but it was almost all in the building. Pop was the opposite. Practice was practice, all the bonding came off the floor, mostly at team dinners.”
It would be unfair to distill a great coach’s philosophy to one phrase, but for Popovich it might be: Buy your players a nice dinner, pour ’em some exquisite wine, collect rings.
“Back then, nobody did that,” Kerr said, referring to Popovich’s team dinners. “You came to practice, and you left, and you fed yourself. If you were on the road, you went out with a couple teammates, and you paid for it yourself . ... The team dinner, for Pop, was the area where he built that camaraderie and that trust and that perspective.
“Now teams all over the league are copying that.”
Including the Warriors. Kerr’s team dinners often include wives, friends and other guests. The Warriors pay for those dinners, but Popovich, then and now, foots the entire tab for his dinners, and he does not go cheap on the wine.
“He has literally spent a fortune on those team dinners,” Kerr said. “Not only does he understand how important they are, he loves doing it, and you felt that love.”
A true connoisseur of wine, Popovich has his own winery in Oregon, Rock & Hammer. Kerr is more of a beer guy, but understands that for Popovich, wine is glue made from grapes, a strong bonding agent.
After three seasons in San Antonio, Kerr was traded to Portland. Then, a year later, Popovich brought Kerr back for one last run.
“The reason he traded back for me was really for chemistry within the team,” Kerr said. “He’s brilliant with roster construction and understanding you have to have vets, players who, as Pop says, have gotten over themselves. I love that expression. I had gotten over myself by that time . ... He knew (the vets) could set the tone for those young guys, and it worked out well. We beat the Knicks in the championship; it was the perfect way for me to exit.”
After a stint with the Suns as the general manager, Kerr got into broadcasting. When he was working a Spurs game, Popovich would invite Kerr to Spurs’ staff dinners. One year Popovich invited Kerr to the Spurs’ coaching retreat.
“I always had an eye on coaching, and he knew that, and he was helping prepare me,” Kerr said.
When Popovich was named head coach of the U.S. men’s team in 2019, he brought in Kerr as an assistant. When Popovich stepped down after last year’s Tokyo Olympics, Kerr was named to succeed him.
A few years ago, some politically progressive fans began half-jestingly to call for a Popovich/Kerr presidential ticket. Neither man has bought into that silliness, although Kerr did once propose a name for the group they would represent: “The Coalition of Citizens Who Are Calling Bulls—.” For the past several years, Kerr and Popovich — along with former coach Stan Van Gundy — have been by far the most outspoken on political and social issues among coaches and managers in all the major sports.
Kerr said he was hoping to hook up with Popovich for dinner this week, especially in light of the crisis in Ukraine. Popovich majored in Soviet Studies at the Air Force Academy and spoke fluent Russian. On active duty, he operated spy satellites monitoring Soviet missile launches.
Kerr knew Popovich would offer valuable insight into the globe-threatening conflict, over a carefully selected bottle of wine. Though Kerr prefers beer, he’s learning wine.
“I don’t know any of that stuff,” Kerr said, “but it’s fun to be along for the ride.”