Sporting Green
Landing of Kerr key in reaching new success level
The Warriors get some rest and await the Clippers-Rockets winner to begin the Western Conference finals Tuesday.
It is all so smooth right now that the Warriors’ path seems preordained. A 67-win regular season. Just 10 playoff games needed to accumulate eight wins. A berth in the Western Conference finals.
The Warriors are a machine. Stephen Curry is the engine, Steve Kerr does the driving, and their final destination seems inevitable.
This progress, one step further than the Warriors’ franchise has taken for almost four decades, wasn’t a given. But it was necessary to make everything that came before a true success. To make the past season more than just a pleasant prelude. To render the turmoil of last spring justifiable.
Because not everything was programmed and calculated. There was a huge measure of luck involved in the Warriors’
journey.
Travel back a year in time, to the first week of May 2014. Joe Lacob fired Mark Jackson just days after the Warriors were ousted after a Game 7 loss to the Clippers in the first round of the playoffs. Jackson had taken the team to the playoffs in consecutive years. The star player and others were not happy with the decision. The move was a risk. There was no successor firmly in place. How many times had the Warriors made some colossal mistake that derailed their hopes and subsequent seasons?
The Warriors’ front-office folks had their collective eyes on Kerr. But he was heading to New York to take the Knicks’ job and reunite with his mentor, Phil Jackson. Everyone in the NBA knew that. After early contact, Kerr let the Warriors know that, too.
So the Warriors headed to choice 1B: Stan Van Gundy. The negotiations heated quick- ly, in part because Van Gundy had another suitor in Detroit. He wanted more control than the Warriors were willing to give him. Detroit also ended up offering more money. Those factors led to talks with Van Gundy breaking down; he eventually took the Pistons’ job.
It looked as though the Warriors were going to go 0-for-their-top-two choices.
What would have happened had Van Gundy said yes to the Warriors before Kerr could reconsider? What if a college coach had been tapped for the job? Would the Warriors be in the Western Conference finals?
Clearly, they had the talent, but would they have the right person pushing the buttons to best utilize that talent? We already know, thanks to the Jackson era, how much the head coach matters.
When the Van Gundy negotiations ended, Kerr was still available. He was sitting in Oklahoma City between TNT telecasts of the Western Con- ference semifinals. There’s not much to do in Oklahoma City.
The fact that Kerr hadn’t committed to the Knicks meant the Warriors still had a chance. The decision makers flew to Oklahoma City, met with Kerr for several hours and worked out a deal.
In the process, Kerr not only spurned Phil Jackson but also avoided the arguably the worst job in the NBA, for a more attractive job on both a personal and professional level.
“The two biggest factors were my daughter being at (Cal) and Steph being on the team,” Kerr said. “And as I told my daughter, it was about 90 percent Steph and 10 percent my daughter.”
It’s been a beautiful thing to watch, a brand of basketball that is thoroughly satisfying to both purveyor and consumer. It has unleashed Curry’s talents, empowered the other players.
Kerr had a vast amount of playoff experience, though none as a head coach. Over the past three weeks, we’ve watched him grow on the job. His team has been tested and survived. Kerr’s demeanor during that test was matter-offact. Whatever concerns or doubts he had weren’t visible.
He admitted after eliminating the Grizzlies that he did have them.
“When we were down two games to one, I felt like I wasn’t doing a very good job,” he said. “Luckily, I have a smart staff to give me support and advice.”
Not merely luckily — that’s by design. The experienced staff Kerr has is the main reason he has the job and Mark Jackson does not. Kerr is not afraid to take advice. He said he has been speaking with outside coaches to get fresh eyes on his team. He declined to name any adviser, but no one would be shocked if the Spurs’ Gregg Popovich was one. Nice to have the NBA’s best coach on your favorites list.
Kerr is not afraid to spread the credit, not only to his staff but also to his predecessor.
“This is a testament to all the work that’s been put in for the last three or four years, building this team, developing players, developing an identity on defense,” he said. “The fact is, I jumped on board this year and the train was already rolling.”
He has taken the train to a stop further than it has been since Gerald Ford was president. And though not explicitly stated, that was a requirement of the job.
On Friday night, as his team faced a blistering Memphis run, cutting a 15-point lead to one, the television microphones picked up Kerr in the team huddle. He was calm and collected.
“OK, we knew this was coming, right?” he said.
The Warriors sure hoped this was coming. But they needed a little luck in landing Kerr to make it happen.