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June 4, 2015Perhaps it was because he never anticipated a career playing professional basketball, or maybe it was because of his upbringing and personal philosophy, or it could have just been a coincidence resulting from a series of decisions that served his career and personal interests at the time — but for whatever reason, Steve Kerr’s basketball career reads like the CV of the world’s foremost basketball scholar: a B.A. in Three-Point Studies courtesy of the University of Arizona at Tucson, where he took Basketball 101 with Lute Olsen; a Masters Degree from Lenny Wilkens University in Cleveland; an apprenticeship with Zen Master Phil Jackson, during which he learned (and was occasionally punched) alongside His Airness Michael Jordan; a Ph.D in Pop-ology from San Antonio with classmate Tim Duncan; and an honorary appointment as an a Mike D’Antoni Fellow in Phoenix. Oh, and he picked the brain of Sir Charles Barkley over a few free beers during a lengthy sabbatical.
As a result of his fastidious and studious nature, Steve Kerr has become the world’s most overeducated basketball mind. And he’s been writing a treatise on how to play the game the right way all season as coach of the Golden State Warriors. Kerr is four pages from completing his masterpiece and life’s work, and he’s certain to do so — unless, of course, the Cleveland Cavaliers blow his research to smithereens right before publication.
As a result of his fastidious and studious nature, Steve Kerr has become the world’s most overeducated basketball mind
As a result of his fastidious and studious nature, Steve Kerr has become the world’s most overeducated basketball mind
Kerr’s phenomenal 89-18 start as an NBA coach would seem improbable, if everything that happened in Kerr’s life wasn’t already improbable.1 Every decision-maker in the competitive basketball world initially regarded the unremarkable Kerr by saying, as put by his own high school coach, “Hey, look, you’re a slow white guy who can’t dunk.” They weren’t wrong, but they weren’t right either. Somehow, Steve Kerr found a way to thrive as an agreeable and largely unathletic accomplice to five NBA championships.
When Kerr went to Arizona, it was on Lute Olson’s promise that “I don’t think Steve will ever play any for me.” Kerr proceeded to play in 129 games in his five-year career,2 scoring 1,445 points for the Wildcats. During his freshman year of college, Kerr’s father Malcolm was assassinated by terrorists while serving as president of American University of Beirut. Ian O’Connor wrote about the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.
“It struck my brother Steve with such force,” [his sister Susan] wrote, “as to push him wildly onto the streets of Tucson, Arizona, where he could not stop running in the aftermath of his middle-of-the-night phone call.”
Two nights after his father’s death, Steve wept during a pregame moment of silence, came off the bench to hit his first jumper — a 25-footer — and made 5 of 7 field goal attempts to give Olson his first Pac-10 victory.
The Phoenix Suns drafted Kerr with the throwaway 50th pick of the NBA Draft, and traded him to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1989. Kerr played for the Cavaliers from 1988-92, and is one of the greatest shooters in team history. Kerr’s career 47.2 percent three-point field goal percentage as a Cavalier is the highest in team history by an astounding five percent, and he became the first NBA player to make over half of his three-point attempts in a season with over 100 attempts in 1990. The Cavaliers traded Kerr in 1992 to the Orlando Magic for a pick that was eventually used to select Reggie Geary, who scored 57 points in his Cavs career and about 1,000 points too few for the trade not to be embarrassing.
After joining the Chicago Bulls in 1995, Michael Jordan once famously punched Kerr in the face during practice when Kerr was unwilling to swear fealty to the domineering Jordan — who had a habit of bullying teammates in practice — leaving him with a black eye. But Jordan left the encounter with a newfound respect for Kerr. That respect would pay dividends for Jordan, the Bulls, and Kerr, when Jordan found the man who had never dunked a basketball for a championship-clinching jumper in the 1997 Finals. Kerr proceeded to win an additional two titles for the San Antonio Spurs (in 1999 and 2003), as the team’s sharpshooter who benefited from a system and roster of complementary talents that afforded him open looks.
In an parallel universe, Kerr is probably the dean of a university, or the ambassador to some Middle Eastern nation who forestalled an international conflict, or in charge of some effort to wipe a disease from the third world. Instead, he was a hell of a basketball player and is on his way to becoming a hell of a coach.
Scott Howard-Cooper described Kerr’s attention to detail and academic approach to basketball in a recent piece for NBA.com:
Nothing would be left to chance. Everything would be planned. Just as Kerr for years kept a notebook of coaching moves he gathered during travels as a TNT analyst — see someone run a good sideline out of bounds, jot it down for future appropriation — so too would he be in an empty Vegas hotel room simulating a timeout as bedlam crashed around him with four seconds to go and the Warriors down one on the road.
Kerr is such an intellectually judicious student and enlightened coach in large part because of his experiences and upbringing. As a result, he’s been able to plagiarize the most valuable bits and pieces of his mentors (like any good academic), to write the most comprehensive manual on how to coach basketball possessed by any one person. No one has been exposed to more brilliant basketball minds over the last twenty-five years than Kerr.
This isn’t to suggest that Kerr is the greatest coach ever or will even go down as a great coach. But his coaching tactics this year suggest that his basketball acumen is second to none. Kerr pilfered Phil Jackson’s master manipulation tactics and ego management, Gregg Popovich’s fluid ball movement and focus on team camaraderie, and D’Antoni’s blistering speed and unstoppable fast break offense. He was wise enough to spurn his former Zen Master Phil Jackson’s New York Knicks offer to take the Golden State Warriors job, where Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green were waiting to be turned into a juggernaut.
This season and postseason have showcased Kerr’s composite background: empowering his stars while pushing the pace; showing a knack for playing big or small lineups; rapid ball movement and sophisticate motion. Few teams have ever thrived as much offensively and defensively in the regular season. Kerr was even smart (or, depending on your #FireBlatt tweet history, dumb) enough to seek now-Cleveland Cavalier coach David Blatt to be an assistant coach for the braintrust he was assembling out West.
Summarily, Steve Kerr has had one of the fascinating lives in sports and is one of the basketball’s true Renaissance men. Warriors forward Andre Iguodala described him as “a little weird, man,” (not to be confused with “a little weird man”) but conceded, “He’s a smart guy, who knows the game.” It’s as if Kerr treated his life like the world’s greatest basketball buffet — tasting a bite of this, sampling a slice of that, and savoring a serving of the other thing, and every course was prepared by a world-class chef. It’ll take valiant play and cunning schemes from coach David Blatt to defeat Kerr and the Warriors. Should they fail, there will be no shame in it. Because the problem knowing your enemy when it’s Kerr is knowing that the enemy knows so much about basketball, courtesy of the game’s most knowing minds from the last 25 years.
- The ensuing several paragraphs are largely derived from Ian O’Connor’s article on ESPN.com from last year on Kerr, “Steve Kerr is tough enough to coach.” It’s excellent and you should read it. [↩]
- He missed a season due to injury, and so was a fifth year senior in 1987. [↩]
6 Comments
Kerr was smart for taking this job he walked into a team that was already set for him unlike Blatt who has had to adjust from the start when he was named head coach of the Cavs. Kerr won five rings he doesn’t need a sixth.
Keep it up with waitingfornextyear … MORE DETAIL
What’s not to love about Steve Kerr.
Well, if I had to pick one thing, he is the coach of the opposing team.
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I enjoyed the clip of Blatt and Kerr greeting one another pregame. It kind of blows apart the stupid narratives about Blatt to be reminded that the other coach who didn’t have to constantly juggle lineups and injuries is being praised incessantly wanted him to be an assistant.