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Steve Kerr candidly remembered his days playing under Gregg Popovich after first meeting the then-young coach in 1998 after he had been dealt to the San Antonio Spurs in a sign-and-trade with the Chicago Bulls.
The now 52-year-old coach admired Popovich's offbeat style of coaching, where he yelled at his stars consistently, keeping them accountable — while he would be more selective with role players and deep reserves.
“If he had yelled at me, it might have destroyed me,” Kerr told Melissa Rohlin of the San Jose Mercury News. “Because I wasn’t a very confident player. I had struggled coming from Chicago to a new system. I didn’t play well.”
“Pop was very wise. He knew guys like me, we weren’t the right target. You’ve got to know your audience. You’ve got to know your team.”
The partnership between Kerr and Popovich, plus the rise of what would be the legend of Tim Duncan (only a year removed from Wake Forest) would win the team's first title during Kerr's first season with the team in 1999, adding to the other four he had collected with the Bulls.
Upon becoming a coach, much later in his career, Kerr took a slightly more aggressive approach, hoping to keep each and every one of his players accountable, allowing a very level-playing field and no room for excuses of preferential treatment.
“That’s how we started when he first signed onto the team,” point guard Stephen Curry said. “We had a talk… That was something he brought up as setting the culture and identity of establishing himself as a coach. His expectation was that I’d be able to take that. And from 1 through 15, he could keep everybody accountable and not have to worry about hurting people’s feelings.”
The method seems to have worked with two championships in three seasons. And even if the Golden State Warriors have struggled to hear Kerr's wisdom from time to time, there's no doubt the respect is there for him.
