OAKLAND, CALIF. — The Golden State Warriors practice facility sits on the fifth floor of a parking garage attached to a Marriott hotel. Friday, the downtown Oakland facility could’ve been mistaken for Bear Down Gym, circa 1987.
Steve Kerr shot free throws, Bruce Fraser corralled the ball and fired it back to him, and they giggled like friends who’ve gotten away with something.
Maybe they have. They’re here, aren’t they?
Crows feet have set in, and their hair is grayer around the edges, but from every inside joke you can tell the bond between Kerr and “Q-Doggie” is still there. That’s what the new Warriors coach calls Fraser, his former college teammate, one of several former Arizona Wildcats who now dot the Golden State coaching staff, roster and organization.
It might be easy to look at Kerr’s team, which also includes assistant coach Luke Walton and guard Andre Iguodala and think he’s insulating himself. He’s not.
People are also reading…
The clue isn’t even in the gym in which they are playing, but outside the same room.
On the walls lining the hallway into the team offices, there are giant posters on the wall of all the Warriors’ legends. Chris Webber and Eric “Sleepy” Floyd. Rick Barry and Guy Rodgers. Clyde Lee and Nate Thurmond. “Run TMC”: Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin.
Greats, all, who played for a franchise that has a combined three NBA titles but hasn’t made a conference final since 1976, a year after it beat the Washington Bullets for its last NBA crown.
Kerr also has five NBA rings. So, it seems, he is not trying to turn the Warrior Way into the Wildcat Way, but the Winning Way. Maybe they’re the same thing.
Building a program
Kerr and Fraser arrived in Tucson to become part of Lute Olson’s bottom floor at Arizona in the mid-1980s. Expectations were not high, but by the time they exited they sure were. The Wildcats had gone from laughingstock to respectable to contender in less than four years.
They got a front-row look at building a program, from the bottom to the top. Olson had high standards, and he expected his players to meet them. Fraser, a reserve point guard, remembers being suspended a week for missing a Spanish class as a senior captain in the 1986-87 season, which Kerr missed with a knee injury.
“It was incredible,” Fraser, now a Warriors player development coach, told the Star. “I was sitting out by the pool, looking at all the pretty girls. This is how real students live?”
Arizona basketball was a full-time commitment back then, but it paid off. The wins came, and the glory as UA began its NCAA tournament streak. Lessons were learned, habits were set.
Is it any surprise that Olson’s coaching tree is full of rich plumage?
The best college basketball coaches, or, at least, the ones who produce the most future basketball professionals — coaches, scouts, executives — are the ones who double-down on the organization, and that is what the former Wildcats are bringing the current Warriors. Forget Xs and Os: what Olson taught was player and time management, team construction and chemistry balance.
“You know when someone has played that long under Coach Olson, he was schooled in a way that he understands the game, understands the fundamentals of the game and is willing to work hard,” said Walton, a member of the Wildcats’ 2001 Final Four team and longtime NBA player.
“... He’s not just hiring people because they went to the same school.”
But it helps.
These former Wildcats speak the same language.
And that doesn’t mean terminology or words. It means attitude, philosophy, know-how. It means expectations and demands. These guys can look each other in the eyes and know what the other has gone through.
“Being on the West Coast, you run into a lot of UA people and, yeah, we have a big Wildcat connection,” Kerr said. “We do have a bond. All the Arizona guys have a bond.”
Kerr said the Warriors will incorporate some of Olson’s drill work and plays into practice — Fraser still has some of Olson’s practice plans from when he served as a UA grad assistant in the late-1980s — but the legendary coach’s legacy is more evident in the foundation being set.
“(Warriors assistant) Alvin Gentry says this: ‘There are a million roads in basketball that lead you to 10 places,’ ” Fraser said. “In those places, what do you do? What do you do at those forks? In those situations?
“Lute taught us what to do in those places early on.”
Wooing Walton
Walton had to at least make the phone call.
Less than two years removed from his own playing days, the 34-year old son of the great Bill Walton had become a hot coaching property last summer. The New York Knicks — led by president Phil Jackson, Walton’s coach with the Los Angeles Lakers — were interested in Luke. Some reports said Jackson wanted Walton as his head coach, even though he had less than two years of coaching experience — one at Memphis with former UA teammate Josh Pastner, and the other with the D-Fenders of the NBA D-League.
But nothing was formalized, and Walton reached out to Kerr. They spoke on the phone, they jelled, Kerr offered, and Walton was in — not because he and Kerr were friends or because they get the same alumni magazine.
“Steve wanted to bring in guys who knew how to win, guys who he could trust, guys who could help set a tone,” Walton said. “I’m sure he has a lot of teammates who he was better friends with than me.
“He went out and looked for guys who would help fit the attitude he wanted to bring to this organization.”
Like Kerr, Walton was a glue guy on multiple championship teams.
Kerr won three titles with the Chicago Bulls and two more with the San Antonio Spurs; Walton won two titles with the Lakers.
“Luke is relevant,” Fraser said. “He’s still young, people know him, he relates to players super well. He’s a really good piece, and he knows the game super well. He’s a head coach in the making.”
taught by ‘Jack and pop’
Kerr calls himself a product of his environment and his experience. He’s done it all: College All-American, NBA Champion, Phoenix Suns general manager and broadcaster.
“I remember a lot of things that Lute taught me and I use a lot of the same principles here,” Kerr said. “Concepts, plays, and that goes for Jack and Pop, too.”
Jack and Pop — Jackson and Gregg Popovich – have more coaching rings than a dirty tub. Kerr absorbed from both, and from Michael Jordan and Tim Duncan.
If Kerr was a sponge, he’d be sopping wet.
And after churning away on an elliptical machine after Friday’s practice, switching between intervals, slow, then fast, then ultra-intense, Kerr is actually drenched.
It’s clear, after just a few moments of observation, he’s up to the task. It’s clear he’s up to this task.
Right opportunity
Fraser said it was a long time in the making.
“When Steve left the Suns and went back into broadcasting, he told me that he really thought his calling was coaching,” Fraser said. “When the right opportunity came around and his kids were in the right place, he would take it and he wanted me to come. I always knew depending on what I was doing, there would be an opportunity for me.”
Fraser bristles at being called one of “Kerr’s guys.” He wants to be known as a guy who knows the game and is just a basketball coach. But their connection runs deep.
They’ve been close friends going on three decades, living near each other in San Diego for the last several years. Breakfasts were frequent. Lunch and dinner, too.
“We almost spend too much time together,” Fraser said. “I mean, it’s sort of normal. Maybe it’s abnormal. Probably abnormal to Margot, his wife.”
Life is pretty sweet these days, and Kerr will often remind his friend.
“We’ll be driving sometimes, and he’ll look at me and he’ll say Q-Dog — he calls me Q-Dog or sometimes Doggie — and he’ll just say, ‘Doggie, how fun is this? How fun is this?’ ” Fraser said. “As friends, this has been unbelievable.”
As teammates, too.
And as Wildcats, most of all.
