Steve Kerr by Scott Howard-Cooper

Author:Scott Howard-Cooper [Howard-Cooper, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

In Demand

Former opponent Michael Cage, retired after a lengthy career, immediately noticed “a more relaxed, happy Steve Kerr” when they crossed paths and chatted at their daughters’ tournaments in the girls’ volleyball hotbeds of San Diego County and just north in Orange County. Kerr standing near a court with his arms folded and appearing fully at ease was the common sighting as fatherly angst from watching Nick in basketball and Maddy in volleyball became the only sports-related stress in his life and family time happily dominated his world again. Although he retained the small ownership slice in the Suns and rooted for Gentry among several favorites still in Phoenix, most notably Steve Nash and Grant Hill on the court, the world of executive decisions and ghastly emails moved to the background as 2010–2011 began.

Kerr was forty-four years old—in the greater issue, Nick was seventeen, Maddy fifteen, and Matthew twelve—and doing a lot more than pondering the future. City-hopping with TNT became Kerr’s entrance into practices and shootarounds as well as an opportunity to quiz coaches in the private meetings teams were required to hold with national broadcasters before games. While he probably would have been welcomed to the workouts anyway, a common practice for friends within the game, even those aware of his interest in a future on the bench may not have known he was working toward that goal by stuffing notebooks with information he learned in the sessions. Opponents were aiding the learning curve that would lead to the commentator coming back to beat them.

He would have collected the plays even without teams holding the door open for him, just as scouts sitting courtside to prepare for an upcoming opponent leave with several detailed breakdowns, even the names of the plays called out. Similarly, Kerr appropriated ideas while watching games on his flat-screen at home, without benefit of VIP access. He spent years diagramming plays, watching LeBron James and, in a particularly valuable bit of forecasting, imagining himself preparing to face the immovable force in a playoff series. He analyzed potential assistants for his future staff and noted how coaches handled delicate moments. The chance to regularly volley ideas with future peers, to talk through situations on and off the court, would prove valuable as his personal file grew by the week. “He asked some questions that might not fit on a telecast, but that he could use down the line,” TNT partner Marv Albert conceded, even if some responses were haphazardly recorded on the cardboard in his dress shirts when they came back from the dry cleaners.

Kerr already had a natural dedication for preparation—habitual in pregame routine as a player, habitual in wanting to be the most experienced first-time coach in history—when he attended a sports leadership conference at the Aspen Institute in Colorado in the summer of 2013 and visited with Jeff Van Gundy. Write down everything, the former Knicks and Rockets coach advised Kerr. What you want to emulate, what you want to change, what you have learned along the way.

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