Nicholas Kerr looking for a two-year jump as the Warriors’ G League coach originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Everything changed for the NBA, and the world in general, on March 11, 2020. The Warriors decided that morning that they would play their home game against the Brooklyn Nets scheduled for March 12 without any fans at Chase Center after the mayor of San Francisco London Breed. banned gatherings of more than 1,000 people. Then that same night, Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert has tested positive for COVID-19.
An hour later it was announced the 2019-20 NBA season would be suspended for the foreseeable future. Vince Carter’s 22-year career came to an end that night. A new chapter also began for Warriors coach Steve Kerr and son Nicholas, who at the time was an assistant on his father’s staff.
All three of Kerr’s children — sons Nicholas and Matthew, and daughter Madeline — have moved into Steve’s San Diego home with their significant others. The family lived together during the pandemic for about four months. Steve remembers many memorable dinners and conversations that he didn’t always enjoy while the world pressed pause. It was also time for him and Nicholas to get ready the 2020 NBA Draftgrinding tape where the Warriors are rewarded the No. 2 overall pick in late August.
Nicholas is now entering his second season as the head coach of the Warriors’ G League affiliate in Santa Cruz, and although he spent three seasons in Golden State’s video department and rose to prominence as a player development coach, the isolation of the pandemic has been the most big two talked about basketball and coaching philosophy. They are father and son first. Basketball will always come second.
But advice was given by a father, watching his ultra-nervous son step into a new reality and a bigger spotlight ahead of his first game as a head coach. The moment could be a time for Kerr to dig deeper, imparting some spiritual wisdom. He could be curious to find the right words straight from a Hollywood script. As he often does, Kerr chose sarcasm to ease his son’s anxiety.
“That was probably the one time he talked about training,” Nicholas recalls in an exclusive interview with NBC Sports Bay Area. “He said, ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be standing there having an idea of what’s going on and what you need to do, and then you’ll realize that the players have decided what’s going on anyway.
‘Unfortunately for you, you don’t have Steph [Curry] for your first game.”
Reminded of his enlightening guidance, Kerr cracked about getting a smile and a laugh from his son before taking the court at Kaiser Permanente Arena against the Stockton Kings. Curry scored a game-high 24 points in the elder Kerr’s coaching debut. Fortunately for Nicholas, he had Brandin Pod Ziemia (24 points) and Trayce Jackson-Davis (28 points), who combined to score 52 points.
Every Kerr came out on the winning side of things.
Players celebrated Nicholas with an onslaught of water bottles being poured on him in the locker room after the win while he was still in his training sweats. Then, Steve and his wife Margot watched to watch what the Warriors coach has done countless times for more than a decade now, answering questions from the media.
“We were incredibly proud,” says Steve. “I knew how nervous he was. It was an incredible night for all of us.”
Neither Steve nor Nicholas denied that nepotism played a role in the Sea Dubs head coach starting his coaching career in San Antonio, a franchise his father played for twice and won two titles with – first in 1999 and then in his final season in 2003. Nicholas played collegiately at the University of San Diego and at Cal, where he was also a graduate assistant for one season.
The two are not naive to the situation either. There is also another side to Nicholas’ work with Golden State and Santa Cruz. His father accepted learning more and more from the analytically inclined younger trainers.
“The younger guys have a bigger education in analytics and modern trends with what’s going on around the league,” he said. “He and our other guys, [head video coordinator] Lain Wilson, [assistant director of player development] Will Sheehey, these guys are great resources. I often ask them.
“They have a different point of view than the elders and it is important. The game is always changing, so it’s important for us to change with it, or hopefully stay ahead, and I know the way to do that is to talk to the young guys.
So, what are the biggest differences and similarities between the two? The obvious first stood out for two former Warriors who were on two-way contracts last season, playing for both Kerrs as they bounced between the G-League and NBA.
“They look alike,” said Usman Garuba. “They look a lot alike, yes.”
Lester Quinones saw a more passive coach in Nicholas compared to Steve. He even suggested that he should have told his coach to get him more, a notion when told about Quinones’ side of things that made Nicholas laugh at his own memories of having to lie in the now Philadelphia 76er more than once. But being around both Steve and Nicholas, the 2022-23 G-League Most Improved Player has seen the many ways they are alike as coaches.
“I’m excited to see what he’s going to do with this coaching thing because he definitely has the ability to be a great coach,” Quinones said.
Santa Cruz reached the second round of the G League playoffs last season, and Garuba was shocked that it was Nicholas’ first as a head coach, thinking he had many more years of experience despite his young age. He praised him for the individual attention he gave him, especially breaking down film.
Although Garuba has only played six games for the big team, the Warriors have placed a major emphasis the last two years on getting Golden State and Santa Cruz on the same page to have players ready to step in at the NBA level when needed.
“He taught me a lot of things,” Garuba said. “He made me work on my game, and being able to try to play like, you know, as similar to how the Golden State Warriors play over there in Santa Cruz. And it was a fun year in Santa Cruz. Every guy I played with that year, we had fun , and that’s something important at the end of the day.”
The idea of individual film sessions did not occur only for Garuba, of course. Kerr made it a point in Santa Cruz for every member of his coaching staff to find time to shoot up the tape for every player. Coaches have rotated through the years, focusing on different positions to build trust and relationships with each player. That right there is a Kerr staple.
Trust. Steve learned it from the greats like Lute Olsen in college through his NBA career under Phil Jackson, Gregg Popovich and other legends of the game. Nicholas didn’t want players to think that only one coach was giving them individual time, but that everyone had their ears and eyes open to better help them on their own path to the NBA.
Both positive and negative examples were shown. For every negative, however, there was always a positive. Another Kerr staple.
“Sometimes for us, it applies to Golden State,” Nicholas explains. “But I think that was probably a bigger picture, philosophical asset. How the team played, how we tried to build the offensive and defensive concepts, whether Golden State had three injuries and had to call you tomorrow. That was kind of the goal.
“I think that’s the goal of every G League organization. We can’t quite match it, so we end up running some different plays and we have some different spacing concepts, but things that apply still apply to Golden State. It becomes easier for the guys.”
Playing a game of compare and contrast between father and son sounds easy on the surface. Following in the footsteps of a future Hall of Famer who won nine rings between playing and coaching can also be a burden for a son.
However, he does not avoid imitating the principles of joy, attentiveness, compassion and competitiveness from a personal and basketball point of view, which have been invaluable to the success of the Warriors.
“You can tell your team that and hope it sticks, but honestly, joy is created by your group,” he said. “It’s not created by your head coach and your assistants. You trust that your players all like each other and all like to play with each other. We had a really fun, competitive group that made every day so much fun to work with everyone.”
As Nicholas begins his second season leading Santa Cruz after an offseason spent with Team USA Basketball and the Golden State Warriors, with the regular-season opener Friday night at home against the Valley Sun, one day before his 32nd birthday, he will win ‘ doesn’t have the luxury of a Warriors first-round draft pick like Podziemski.
His roster is eclectic that presents the military. 2024 second-round pick Quinten Post looking to develop into an NBA player, just like former touted New York Knicks top pick Kevin Knox and many others trying to show they belong at the highest level of basketball.
Helping them get there and also find ways to win G League games, Nicholas turns to the same core values his father teaches every day, starting with joy but understanding who is the true chef of that creation, empowering his players at every opportunity.
