So the Golden State Warriors hired a former TV analyst with no coaching experience and a decorated playing career to lead their up-and-coming team.
Stop us if you've heard this before.
One week after firing Mark Jackson despite a second consecutive playoff appearance and inviting so many inquiries about what in the name of Joe Barry Carroll was going on behind their walls, the Warriors gave Steve Kerr a five-year, $25 million deal that naturally led to all sorts of fair questions how this all made sense. Kerr is a widely-respected and darn-near revered member of the NBA community, to be sure. And the fact that the Warriors, having failed in their pursuit of new Detroit Pistons team president and coach Stan Van Gundy, were able to seal this deal before Phil Jackson could convince his former player to come to the New York Knicks was impressive.
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But in the here and the now, Kerr's coaching résumé' looks exactly the same as Jackson's did when Warriors owner Joe Lacob gave him his first chance back in 2011. And that is why, as Lacob sees it, this all makes perfect sense in the weirdest of ways.
"Look, we did pretty well with Mark Jackson," Lacob told USA TODAY Sports by phone, his statement thick with irony but strangely logical. "In the end, it wasn't working out, which only we can probably totally appreciate on the inside. No one is ever going to understand it. I get that (people) see the win total, and they think that's all that matters. But we have an organization that's 200 people, and everyone has to get along and work together and that's just the way it worked out. …We went out and we wanted to find the best guy to lead this team to the next level.
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"Yes, it's true, (Kerr) has not coached before. But this is what management is all about. You have to be able to pick people, and he is incredibly prepared…Every detail you can imagine. He knew our roster in and out. He had assistant coaches he wanted to go after. It was like a tour de force. Look, at the end of the day I know he knows a lot about basketball. We're taking a little bit of a risk on his coaching ability, but we did that with Mark and it worked. So it's just about finding the right fit for the organization and a guy who has extremely high potential, is a hard worker and is very prepared. That's what we have got."
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