While he was not a star player in the traditional sense in his 15-year career, he shined brightly in whatever role he was asked to play. He took all the knowledge he learned as a player from the Hall of Fame teammates he played alongside and the head coaches he played for and used that to become a tremendous broadcaster and as the head coach of the three-time NBA champions from the Bay Area. He has also used that knowledge to be his guiding force in a season that has been tough but still has provided a lot of lessons he hopes that will make him and his squad collectively better next season and in the future.
Back on Apr. 25, longtime studio host for the NBA on TNT and “Inside the NBA” on TNT Ernie Johnson via video chat talked for the show “#NBA Together with Ernie Johnson” for NBATV with five-time NBA champion as a player and the current head coach of the three-time NBA champion Golden State Warriors about his upbringing, his playing career; his career as a color analyst for NBA on TNT and the state of the Warriors to the point before the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic put the entire NBA season on pause on Mar. 11.
Johnson began the chat by saying that he was listening to two radio interviews that Kerr did on the aforementioned date in March of how the contest between the Utah Jazz and the Oklahoma City Thunder was postponed and how it eventually that delay, which eventually led to the cancellation of that contest and the subsequent suspension of NBA play with no set date of the league resuming.
“I had no idea. It’s hard to fathom,” Kerr said of what has happened to all pro and collegiate sports because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s hard to process the result and the repercussion of something like this, and then what’s next where we basically shut down. And so, here we are, you know whatever it is six weeks later. And were all kind of trying to do the right thing, and we’ll see where it goes.”
In recent weeks there have been ideas floated in the news about how the NBA specifically will complete the remainder of the regular season and its postseason from moving teams to two specific locations like Las Vegas, NV and Orlando, FL.
Kerr said to Johnson that the Warriors organization has been in consistent contact with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and the league office where they have gotten “periodic” updates, which has been passed down to the him, and he and Warriors General Manager Bob Myers would discuss what they have been told.
Despite those conversations and updates from the NBA front office, Coach Kerr said there is no “basis” to have any kind of confidence or to have no confidence that the 2019-20 NBA campaign will resume anytime soon because there is not enough information of how to resume and how to protect the players, coaching staffs and those that are part of the gameday operations of each of the 30 NBA squads.
“I know that the league and all of us in the league would love to see some kind of conclusion,” Kerr said. “Of course, health comes first, and that’s what the league is trying to figure out.”
Even if the league were to resume action, the Warriors (15-50) situation this season is pretty much set as they were at the bottom of the standings in the Western Conference as the five-time defending champions of the West were going to miss the playoffs for the first time since the 2011-12 season.
A big reason for the previously mentioned three-time champions in the last five seasons going down the tubes from this campaign is because of injuries to key members of the team.
Two-time Finals MVP and perennial All-Star Stephen Curry missed a total of 60 games, with 58 of those games coming because of a broken left hand sustained on Oct. 3, 2019 versus the Phoenix Suns. His fellow perennial All-Star running mate and other half of the dubbed “Splash Brothers” in Klay Thompson had not played at all this season recovering from a torn ACL in his left knee sustained in Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals versus the eventual NBA champion Toronto Raptors in June 2019. Three-time All-Star, three-time NBA All-Defensive First Team selection and 2017 Kia Defensive Player of the Year Draymond Green had missed 22 games during the season because of various injuries.
For Coach Kerr, the remaining part of the season, prior to the suspension because of the COVID-19 Pandemic was more about continuing to develop the likes of rookies Eric Paschall, Jordan Poole, and Ky Bowman, and fellow youngsters in Marquese Chriss, Damion Lee, and Omari Spellman.
It was also about developing chemistry between those players with Curry, who had returned from injury to register 23 points with seven assists and seven rebounds in the Warriors 121-113 loss versus the aforementioned Raptors on Mar. 5 on TNT and Andrew Wiggins, who the Warriors acquired at the Feb. 6 trade deadline from the Minnesota Timberwolves.
“Our season, it feels concluded, whereas, you think of the other coaches in the league, I think they have a totally different job,” Kerr said in reference to the true championship contenders in the No. 1 Seeded Los Angeles Lakers (49-14) in the Western Conference and the No. 1 Seeded Milwaukee Bucks (53-12) in Eastern Conference.
“So, my job has been more about player evaluation, staff evaluation, preparation for the draft. And were trying to work on projects to internally to help us get better.”
The lessons of appreciation of what the Warriors have accomplished in Kerr’s first five seasons as their head man on the sidelines to what he did in his playing career came from the great players he battled alongside on the hardwood and the Hall of Fame Coach he played under at the University of Arizona and in the NBA.
Playing for the likes of Lute Olsen at the University of Arizona to playing for Hall of Famer Phil Jackson and eventual Hall of Famer Gregg Popovich of the Chicago Bulls and San Antonio Spurs respectively, Kerr said he got the kind of “apprenticeship” on what it took to be a great NBA head coach.
Kerr said of what he garnered from Coach Olsen, Jackson and Popovich was the style of play and style of leadership you want to project to your players? The standard and focus you want in practice? What you want your players to feel when they enter the practice facility each day.
It is those decisions at the end of the day Kerr said that help to develop the “culture” and “vibe” around of the team, and it is those two things specifically Kerr told Johnson that Coach Jackson and Coach “Pop” that influenced him the most.
Kerr said that Jackson and Popovich were very “authentic” to themselves and presented themselves in a way that you knew in playing for them that they loved you, but had no problem in getting after you if you “crossed the line” in their eyes.
That is especially true of Coach Popovich, who had no problem if you screwed up on either end of court he would pull you out of the game and give you a tongue lashing to where when you got a second chance you would redeem yourself or not see the floor for quite a while.
Kerr said his identity and authenticity as the lead man on the Warriors sidelines for five seasons now is one where he wants his players to play with “joy,” but play with a “fiercely competitive spirit” whenever they practiced and especially come game time.
That job for Kerr was made very easy because of the star players like Curry, Thompson and Green; former Warrior and now Brooklyn Net, who won back-to-back Finals MVPs in perennial All-Star Kevin Durant; and former key role players in the now retired Shaun Livingston and 2015 Finals MVP Andre Iguodala.
Coach Kerr called Curry the “most joyful” player he has ever been around in his life. The competition part of the Warriors identity is due in large part to guys like Green, who Kerr said is “one of the great competitors” he has ever been around brought that focus and determination to practice and gameday at all times.
“That sort of combination is what I was looking for because that’s who I am,” Kerr said. “I always competed like crazy. I had a chip on my shoulder, but I took so much joy out of the game myself, and that’s when I performed my best. So, that’s what I tried to impart on the Warriors.”
There was a moment though back in 2014 that Kerr might have taken the head coaching opening with the New York Knicks, where Coach Jackson was their President of Basketball Operations at the time.
On top of that, the Knicks job was available before the Warriors was because their front office had not made a decision on whether to continue with now ESPN/ABC color analyst Mark Jackson as their lead man on their sideline.
As he was making his decision, Kerr said that he had talked with Jackson and several head coaches in the league that he trusted and they all said to him that the most important thing to give you the best chance to win is to have a team with “talent.”
When it came to that one thing between the Warriors and the Knicks, the Warriors had the more talented group and had been a playoff team the past two seasons prior.
On top of that, a close and good friend Kerr’s asked him what would Phil Jackson do if he was in the same position he is in now?
Kerr said that Jackson would go to the team with the more talented roster, and Kerr took job of coaching the Warriors and the that has resulted in adding three more championships to his resume and has before this season produced five seasons of 57 wins or more, including an NBA-record 73 wins in 2015-16.
As important as it is to have a joy for the game, a super talented team and wanting to create an atmosphere that is infused with great competition, the one great aspect for any great coach is your ability to relate to your players.
That is something that Coach Kerr has because for about half of his 15 NBA seasons he was the 10th, 11th or 12th man on the bench. Meaning that the only time you would get into the game if it is a blow out whether the team is on the winning end or the losing end of the scoreboard.
Coach Kerr can identify with the guys who were stars at the high school level and collegiate level but could not get consistent playing time in the NBA because of the players that are slightly more talented than that particular individual.
It is why he made it a priority to acknowledge and empower those players on the Warriors by getting them into the game to get that point across, and to be ready at all times, so when their number is called they are prepared to succeed when they get their chance.
One specific moment that Kerr put those words into action was Game 6 of the 2003 Western Conference Finals at the Dallas Mavericks on May 29, 2003.
Through the first five games of that series, Kerr had only play two minutes. In Game 6 Coach Popovich searching for someone to give them a spark turned to Kerr late in the third quarter and gave the Spurs that necessary lift connecting on four three-pointers in the fourth period helping Spurs to a 90-78 victory to win the series 4-2, and they eventually won their second of five titles in franchise history.
During the postgame trophy presentation in the locker room to the Western Conference champion Spurs, Kerr said to his eventual colleague in Johnson about hitting a couple of free throws in 103-91 loss versus the Mavericks in Game 5 he referred to himself as “Ted” in reference to the MLB Hall of Fame great Ted Williams saying, “They’ve had me frozen solid for about six months. They thawed me out the other day with the free throws so I was ready to go tonight.”
Kerr added about his offensive explosion from three-point range in the final period saying, “A lot of practice over the years, you know? I’ve been trying to stay in shape the last couple of months and been waiting to get a chance, and it came tonight. So, I was lucky to come through.”
That night has had a major impact on Kerr in his coaching career so far with the Warriors as working in concert with GM Myers about making sure the roster as at least a couple of players who can may not be consistent parts of the rotation but can provide that necessary word as well as the necessary actions that show leadership and bring the kind of focus to always be ready to contribute when your number is called.
That has been especially important this season for the Warriors who as mentioned for the past five years have been on the professional sports version of Cloud-9 having represented the Western Conference in The Finals five consecutive Junes.
Coach Kerr said that because beginning with him, having perspective, a worldly perspective that it is “easier” to remind yourself even when you are having out of this world success that at some point it was going to conclude, or at least at the beginning of this season for the Warriors be harder to get back to the championship round.
That task became harder with the departure of Durant this past summer. The trade of Iguodala to the Grizzlies. The aforementioned retirement of Livingston. Being without Thompson, and the sudden subsequent injuries to Curry and Green during the season.
“And so, the last five years we went to The Finals. We had this incredible run. We knew it was going to end,” Coach Kerr said. “Nobody gets to live on top forever. And we took it in the perspective that we understood at the time, and the same thing is true right now, you know?”
“We had a lot of injuries. A ton of young players. We had the worst record in the league. Keep perspective. Things are going to get better. Let’s improve internally. Let’s get guys healthy, and let’s use this year as a springboard to get better and hopefully we become a much better team next year.”
That sounds easy to say, but like anything in life worth having or wanting to achieve can be hard to do and Coach Kerr know this firsthand.
In his freshmen year at the University of Arizona, Kerr got a phone call that no one, especially a child ever wants to get.
Back on Jan. 18, 1984, Kerr’s father Malcolm, a devoted academic who essentially began his dream job as the President of the American University in Beirut was killed after taking two shots in his head by terrorist.
Kerr said of that moment that his “innocence” was lost and that he had to quickly grasp on how to deal with the “heartbreak” and all the “devastation” that was to follow such a tragic loss.
Perhaps the greatest lesson Kerr took from that moment is that it was not just a person whose life was simply ended, that a family’s life is changed forever. That person who left the earth will no longer share a simple moment like laughing with friends and family at dinner. Not be able to if they are married continue the maturation of holy matrimony with their spouse and kids.
Coach Kerr and his family used that moment to be their guide to love one another through the good and the bad and continue to push forward, and take as much “joy” from life as possible, while being “aware” of those who are suffering and experiencing what their family experienced, and try to find that “balance” between “living your life and enjoying it,” while also having a compassion and respect to what is taking place in the world around you.
Coach Kerr also used that moment to be a better person compared to the hot-headed no compassion person he was as an athlete and as a person.
He told Johnson that at age 5 he was knocking kids over to recover more eggs than them at an Easter egg hunt.
To Kerr, winning was everything to him and he did whatever it took to be on top, and when he did not win, he said he would get so emotional. He had to learn composure and to relax and remember that there was more to life than just winning, which he said took a long time for him to grasp.
While he has a better control over his emotions, Coach Kerr has had his moments where he will show his unhappiness with referees or at his team.
There was a game once where he was so upset at how his Warriors team was playing that he broke his clipboard, which he said he does at least three to four times a year. There was another game last year at the Portland Trail Blazers prior to the All-Star break where Kerr simply went after referee Ken Mauer for a bad call, drew two technical fouls and got himself tossed.
“I think for the most part I’m able to remain poised and try to be clear thinking, and clear headed,” Kerr said of his ability to control his emotions today. “I think that’s who I’ve become because I matured and I had great parents, and I understood that just being a hothead my whole life wasn’t gonna get it. And I had to be more thoughtful, and more poised under pressure and those are just thing that came as I got older.”
What has happened since the death of his father, Coach Kerr has without hesitation has given his thoughts on what is going in our world, good and bad with our politics, especially since the election of our 46th President of the United States Donald Trump.
Kerr has been especially “passionate” about the need for our nation’s gun laws to be reworked, particularly with the huge spike in mass shootings in places like our schools and hangout spots like nightclubs and gun safety.
“I was just so feed up, you know reading the news-not only year-after-year but literally month-after-month, sometimes week-after-week, incident-after-incident; 10 to 15 kids killed in a school shooting. And yet, we couldn’t do anything about it. We weren’t doing anything about it,” Kerr said.
One particular mass shooting that Coach Kerr really stood on his soap box to express his feelings was on June 12, 2016 when Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard opened fire at a gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, FL that killed 29 people, who were mostly Hispanic and wounded 53 others.
It was this particular incident where Coach Kerr felt confident saying something about this particular issue, which he received a ton of support as well as backlash from citizens on both sides.
Between his playing career and his time as head coach of the Warriors, Kerr from 2003-07 and from 2010-14 served as a color analyst for the NBA on TNT, mainly working alongside legendary play-by-play commentator Marv Albert.
Kerr said the part of being on the media side of the NBA that he really liked was the 10 to 15-minute pregame interviews with the two opposing head coaches, which he told Johnson that he “loved,” which he now being on the opposite side of it said jokingly to Johnson that he cannot “stand.”
“Just sitting down, you know, at the time with Erik Spoelstra (head coach: Miami Heat), Rick Carlisle (head coach: Dallas Mavericks)-These guys were just so accommodating and helpful,” Kerr said. “They were just giving information to try to help with our broadcast. But I was learning a ton from them. From all the coaches in terms of what it’s like to coach in the league. What they’re looking for? So, I think being in TV really helped me prepare for the coaching job.”
In between his two four-year stints with TNT, Kerr was the GM of the Phoenix Suns from 2007-10.
During this suspension of all sporting activities, both college and professional, Coach Kerr has teamed up with head coach Pete Carroll of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks for a podcast called “Flying Coach,” where they have done two episodes so far talking about coaching and leadership, while also raising money for COVID-19 relief and food banks, and entertain folks.
There are many sides to an individual, and many phases that individual goes through in their maturation as a person. As a youth, Steve Kerr was a hotheaded competitor who loved to win and did whatever necessary whether it was as a basketball player or even something that should be enjoyable like an Easter egg hunt. As he got older and through the loss of his father learned the value of appreciating life and having the kind of humility to respect others and value each moment with gratitude, respect, and joy. In 15 seasons in the NBA, Kerr learned how to be a role player who when his time came to rise to the moment he did and won three straight titles in his time with the Chicago Bulls in the middle of the 1990s and two more titles in 1999 and 2003 with the San Antonio Spurs.
Kerr would go on after his 15-year career to work as a color analyst for NBA on TNT for two four-year stints, while also working in the front office for the Phoenix Suns.
Today, Kerr is the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, who he has helped to guide to five straight Western Conference crowns, garnering three of the franchise’s four Larry O’Brien trophies; four Pacific Division titles in the last five seasons and brought a brand of free flowing basketball that has become a big part of the league today in shooting a ton of threes and having whatever combinations of players you want on the floor.
More than anything else, Steve Kerr is a person who has figured out how to be his own person, while also taking knowledge he learned from the great players and coaches he played for and using it to create his own path of success, while also letting whoever is within the distance of his voice that we all matter and we all deserve to be appreciated, respected, heard and treasured.
Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 6/3/2015 https://ftw.usatoday.com story, “The assassination of Steve Kerr’s Father And The Unlikely Story of A Champion,” by Chris Korman; Page 315: 2002-03 Playoff Results of the Sporting News’ “2006-07 Official NBA Guide;” 5/1/2020 9:30 a.m. NBATV’s edition of “#NBATogether With Ernie Johnson,” with head coach Steve Kerr from 4/25/2020; https://www.nba.com/2019-20-trade-tracker; https://www.espn.com/nba/standings; https://www.espn.com/nba/team/stats/_/name/gs/golden-state-warriors; https://www.espn.com/nba/game?gameid=401161571; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Golden_State_Warriors_seasons; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Kerr; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draymond_Green; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_nightclub_shooting.
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