<![CDATA[Making The Rounds On Day Two Of Steve Kerr Warriors Head Coach Hiring (Photo: @jcabalu242 and @letsgowarriors Instagram accounts)
Yesterday was Day Two of Steve Kerr‘s tenure as Golden State Warriors head coach, albeit the job is still listed as an agreement “in principle” and still not “official”. Day Two steamed onward with reactions from, of course, Kerr, but also Mark Jackson, Stephen Curry, and an unnamed Warriors player.
It all started with a must-read (if you have 10-15 minutes) of Kerr’s background, from Ian O’Connor of ESPN.com. Kerr’s father was killed in Beirut, Lebanon, assassinated at the hands of terrorists, while Steve was in Tucson, AZ, having just joined Coach Lute Olson‘s team there. A few years later, Steve had to go through some of the ugliest of opposing crowd taunts one could imagine.
But in 1988, as Kerr was a fifth-year senior recovering from a torn ACL, the court was a sanctuary no more. During warm-ups before a game at Arizona State, some 10 to 15 fans hit him with a series of subhuman chants that included “P-L-O” and “Where’s your dad?”
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Kerr dropped the ball and all but collapsed onto the bench, his eyes filling up with tears. He was a beaten man, at least until he wasn’t.
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Kerr recovered to score 20 of his 22 points in the first half, to make all six of his 3-point attempts in the blowout victory and to send a message to those who tried to unnerve him with their evil words.
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“There’s no question they made me play my best,” Kerr said that night.
Again, O’Connor’s piece isn’t done justice unless you read the whole story.
Not too long after that story broke, Curry went on the air with Charlotte radio station WFNZ 610AM. Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group listened in and tweeted that Curry called Kerr a “great guy” and said, “It’s exciting for the Warriors knowing where our future is and in whose hands it is…It’s going to be fun to kind of grow with him and see what happens.”
Not too long after that, Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group tweeted that he had just gotten off the phone with Curry and would post the report soon.
Shortly thereafter, Tim Kawakami posted a transcript of an interview with now-former head coach Jackson, which was later summarized. Worth the whole read, the interview dispelled several rumors ranging from the black suit Jackson wore for Game 7 against the Los Angeles Clippers, to the thought process behind his tweet to congratulate Stan Van Gundy and not tweeting similar congratulations to Kerr. Jackson also referred to Kerr as “a first-class guy”.
Another interesting thing related to Kawakami’s article is that InsideBayArea.com originally ran the story under the headline, “Mark Jackson has no thoughts on Steve Kerr”, but was later changed to, “Exclusive Mark Jackson Q&A on Kerr hiring”.
Shortly after that came Thompson’s article, where he reported that Curry was still frustrated about Jackson’s firing, but had talked to Kerr and was looking forward to playing for him. Again, worth the entire read:
“It’s difficult, but it’s good to know what the next direction is,” Curry said Thursday in his first public comments since Jackson was fired. “It’s still kind of stressful knowing how it all went down.
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“I heard a lot of different explanations and reasons. I heard the positions on why management and the front office wanted to make a change. I can’t say I agree with all of them, but I know what they were thinking and I understand where they are coming from.”
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Curry said he would prefer if ties were severed and that was it. But he admitted it stings to hear negative talk about Jackson. It feels a bit excessive.
In the early evening, Kerr went on-the-air in the Bay Area, with an interview from KNBR’s Tom Tolbert, who was, ironically, a teammate of Kerr’s at the University of Arizona.
After a comparison was made between Kerr’s decision to spurn the New York Knicks and Tolbert’s decision to spurn the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in favor of Arizona, Kerr poked fun at Tolbert, telling him, “I know it was tough for you because they (UNLV) had already given you all that money and the car.”
On a more serious note, Kerr told Tolbert that, as far as the Warriors’ offense was concerned, he wants the Warriors to run. If the early offense doesn’t yield a bucket, Kerr added that he wanted ball movement and to keep running, flowing into the halfcourt offensive set. Kerr also said that he’d been in contact with many of the Warriors players by phone already, as that was obviously the first thing that was needed in the transition from Jackson to Kerr as head coach.
When asked how he would hold players accountable, Kerr said, “I have no problem getting into a guy, getting on him.”
In closing, Tolbert got his comeback joke with Kerr, poking fun of his lack of coaching experience, “Telling me to get back on defense twenty-five years ago doesn’t count as coaching.”
Shortly after that, Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle posted this report, also an interview with Kerr:
How big of a deal was that meeting with owner Joe Lacob and general manager Bob Myers in Oklahoma City?: “It was huge. You’re never going to feel comfortable until you meet face to face.
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Was the Triangle Offense part of that? There will definitely be triangle elements. With the rule changes and this roster, I think it’s important to run and get shots early. I think it would be crazy to take screen-and-roll away from Steph Curry, and there’s not a lot of screen-and-roll in the triangle. We’re not going to be looking at the90s Chicago Bulls. I really want to take advantage of the passing abilities of (Andrew) Bogut and (David) Lee. I really want to utilize everybody skills in playing with tempo, flow and rhythm.”
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That’s going to take a top-notch assistant coaching staff, right?: “Yeah, I’ve given it a lot of thought. Bob has a lot of ideas, as well. We’re going to take our time and collaborate on that. I know that’s maybe the key for this whole thing for me. I’ve got to make sure I’ve got the best staff I can possibly hire. I’ve got a lot of names and ideas, but Bob and I are going to put our heads together and make sure we do it right.”
Finally, to end Day Two on a more solemn note, Ric Bucher reported that he had interviewed an anonymous Warriors player who claimed that the players had remained silent on Twitter — something that our Ryan Brown noticed yesterday — with regard to the hiring of Kerr, out of respect for Jackson:
Whether that belief is merited is the subject of another story; what matters here is only that there are Warriors players who hold it and will watch very closely to compare upper management’s treatment of Kerr compared to Jackson this coming season.
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The Warriors, collectively, are regarded as a high-character group and are almost certain to give Kerr every chance to show that he is the upgrade over Jackson that Lacob has promised.
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“There aren’t any idiots in that locker room,” the player said. “We have solid guys, great guys. I’m not saying he won’t be able to win the team over. But that will be his biggest challenge. Can he take us to a place Coach Jackson couldn’t? We were one basket away from going back to the semifinals a second year in a row. That means Steve has to get us to the conference finals or the finals. Guys are going to be very conscious of that. If you’ve known him for 20 years, why wasn’t he on your list before this? Did he not want the job then? Coach Jackson changed the culture and this is how you do him? If this is your loyalty to Coach, what’s your loyalty to me? I know it raised questions with all of us.”
And with that we close with this related tweet, albeit from the day before, from Adam Lauridsen, who has a few sources of his own, of the San Jose Mercury News:
There were people inside Warriors org predicting as early as February that Steve Kerr would be next coach. Lacob got his (new) guy.
— Fast Break (@GSWFastBreak) May 15, 2014
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