The "genius" question hanging over the Warriors
With Steve Kerr potentially on his way out, is this just another master stroke of owner Joe Lacob's light years longterm planning?
Chase Center. The Warriors season ended last week in Phoenix, but the building doesn’t sleep. It just changes who it stays awake for. There’s always an event to bring spectators in and spend some cold hard cash.
The concert ended hours ago. The building is still sitting with it. Beer and popcorn hanging in the air like they forgot to leave. Jumbotron half off, throwing a dim blue across rows and rows of empty expensive seats.
George runs a mop across the hardwood. Slow. The rhythm of a man who stopped counting somewhere around night one thousand. He cleaned Oracle too. Back when the noise lived differently in your chest.
Carl leans against the tunnel railing, radio on his shoulder. Nine years on this security team. Close enough to championships to have smelled the champagne drying in the locker room carpet. Tonight he’s watching the court like it owes him something.
They don’t look at each other right away. They never do. But tonight something is sitting in the air between them that isn’t popcorn.
George: You hear Kerr’s leaving?
Carl: I don’t know if it’s true, but I heard something like that.
George: And?
Carl: And…what? Man coaches twelve years, eventually something ends. That’s life.
George: (keeps mopping) That simple, huh.
Carl: (scratching his cheek through his beard) What do you want me to say? He acknowledged it himself. Said there’s an expiration date on the job. Said new blood might be needed. His words.
George: Mmmhmm.
Carl: Then you know it’s not just about Kerr. It’s about what comes next. Steph’s got maybe two years. Draymond’s declining. You think it’s packed like this when he’s gone? This team needs a new voice, a new system, somebody who can actually develop somebody.
George: Develop somebody like who?
Carl: Somebody young and athletic with some starpower.
George: (the mop pauses) You mean like Wiseman and Kuminga? Or like Smiley?
Carl: You always gotta bring up Alen Smailagic.
George: Loved that kid’s smile but I’m pretty sure Kerr wasn’t going crazy in the draft room trying to bring him aboard.
Carl: Smiley wasn’t a lottery pick buddy. Warriors drafted Wiseman at #2 and Kuminga at #7. You telling me Kerr deserves no scrutiny for letting them wash out?
George: In a system that wasn’t built for them? Ownership didn’t do him no favors on that. You can’t have a restaurant and just because you’re the owner, throw the chef a bunch of ingredients that doesn’t go with the menu and say “make it taste good or else”. You know what Kerr actually wanted in that draft?
Carl: Michael Jordan?
George: Franz Wagner.
Carl: (quiet) I heard that.
George: Then you know who got drafted instead. And you know where he is now.
(Carl doesn’t answer. The mop starts again.)
George: I’m just asking a fair question. If the coach didn’t pick the ingredients, who gets blamed for the dish?
Carl: (after a moment) You know what your problem is? You see the piece and miss the puzzle. Zoom out. You have to zoom out.
George: I’m zoomed out like a Zoom meeting baby.
Carl: (chuckles) Zoom out further. Because when Lacob bought this franchise, there was nothing here. Sixteen years without a playoff appearance.
George: I know.
Carl: Monta Ellis was the guy.
George: I know.
Carl: He pays $450 million for that. Everybody thinks he’s lost his mind. He hires Mark Jackson, no coaching experience, people are furious. What happens?
George: Culture shifts.
Carl: Culture shifts. When they traded Ellis for Bogut, Lacob got booed. When Lacob fires Pastor Mark after 51 wins they was ready to arrest that man for racism in the workplace.
What does he do? Brings in Kerr, a guy who had never coached whose biggest claim to fame as a non-player was ruining the 7 Seconds or Less Phoenix Suns as general manager. How did hiring Kerr work out?
(Carl points towards the banners in the rafters)
Carl: Every single time. Doubted.
George: Mm.
Carl: Every single time, right.
George: I’ll give you the Jackson firing. That one was clean. Most owners don’t move on 51 wins. Most owners are scared of the room.
Carl: Thank you.
George: I said I’ll give you that one. Keep going.
Carl: (a beat, recalibrating) You know what that is? That’s a Joseph spirit. You know your scripture?
George: I know my scripture. Say more.
Carl: Joseph. Thrown in a pit by his own brothers. Sold into slavery. That same man ends up appointed to save Egypt from a famine. Takes the longshot nobody wanted and turns it into provision for everybody. That’s a Joe story.
George: Mm.
Carl: Then you’ve got the other Joseph. Stepfather of Jesus. Think about what that man had to navigate. Raising something he didn’t create, protecting a miracle he was just trusted to steward. Getting no credit, just being Jesus’ earthly daddy.
George: (still mopping) Still a Joe story.
Carl: Still a Joe story. And then you’ve got Joe Jackson. Gary, Indiana. Some poor Black boys from nowhere that the whole world was sleeping on. Joe Jackson looks at those boys and says: these are going to be the biggest stars on the planet.
George: And he was right.
Carl: And he was right! And now you’ve got Joe Lacob. Took this broke little franchise from Oakland and turned it into a dynasty. Same pattern. Same energy. Same genius that people don’t recognize until after the fact.
(The mop stops.)
George: I just watched that new Michael Jackson movie last night.
Carl: ...Okay.
George: Wasn’t the moral of the story that Joe Jackson pushed Michael away and ruined their relationship because he couldn’t understand that the original vision had run it’s course? And that Michael had evolved beyond whatever Joe had thought of back in that little Gary, Indiana home? So locked into what those boys could become that he couldn’t recognize what he actually had standing right in front of him? He alienated his own child, the King of Pop.
Carl: Well damn just spoil the whole damn movie for me then!
George: (back to mopping) My fault.
Carl: You know what your problem is? You’re sentimental.
George: That’s the second time you’ve diagnosed me tonight, fella. You a therapist or sumn?
Carl: That’s my side hustle.
George: Yea okay. Also, what’s wrong with being sentimental about the dudes who gave the Bay, and literally the whole world something to cheer about? From the Bay to Manila, you’ve got people wearing Steph Curry jerseys and learning to play ball the right way. Don’t 4 championships get Kerr, Steph, and Draymond the opportunity to go out on their terms? A Last Dance if you will.
Carl: What is this, Grease? Lacob didn’t privately finance a billion-dollar arena on the San Francisco waterfront to ride out somebody else’s closing credits. When Steph is done, when Draymond is done, say one, two years, then what? You think Lacob did all of this just to be a Steph Curry merchant?
George: The Steph Curry merchant has four rings.
Carl: And when Steph is gone, then what? The league is full of athletes right now. Giants. True freaks. Lottery picks who can jump out the gym and make plays that change franchises. If Kerr can’t or won’t commit to developing that kind of player, who is he building this for?
George: How many of those freaks have more rings than these Warriors?
Carl: Times are changing. You have to be ahead of it.
(The mop pauses again.)
George: Right. Light years ahead.
Carl catches it. Sits with it. Doesn’t fight it.
George: Here is my actual question. Not about Kerr. About Lacob. Does a genius get credit for the miracle? Or does the miracle make him look like a genius?
Carl: That’s the same thing.
George: It’s really not. Steph Curry and Klay Thompson reinvent offensive basketball. The three-pointer becomes the most valuable currency in the sport. The Warriors, with Kerr running the system, happen to be positioned perfectly for that exact moment. Lacob benefits. Enormously. Where in that sequence is the genius?
Carl: Lacob put the people in place to make it happen!
George: Look. I’m not saying the man doesn’t have something. I’m asking a real question. The kind that this building is going to be sitting with for a long time. Because if Lacob is the genius who creates conditions for miracles, that’s one thing. That’s legitimate. That deserves real credit. But if he’s the genius who recognizes a miracle after it happens and positions himself in the story, that’s a different thing.
Carl: (finally) He’s still one of the best things to happen to this franchise outside of Curry himself.
George: Nobody’s arguing that.
Carl: Twelve years with Kerr. Six Finals. Four championships. That 2022 run with half a roster and a city that had moved on. That was real.
George: That was Kerr.
Carl: Lacob kept Kerr. Despite all of that political stuff he always doing (shaking head to himself.)
George: His politics. His willingness to say what he believes out loud. The man’s father was assassinated in Beirut. You think that doesn’t live somewhere in him every time he opens his mouth about violence in this country?
Carl: (measured) In America, your employer makes decisions about what’s best for the business. That’s just the reality at this level and Joe is standing on business.
George: The Bay Area has always had something to say too. The Bay stands on having a voice. And a coach whose father was murdered in a politically motivated attack speaking up about injustice? That feels like the Bay to me. Not a liability.
Carl: If we talking liabilities then let’s talk him playing Anderson Varejao in Game 7 against Cleveland.
(both men burst out laughing).
Carl looks back at the banners patiently towering above the floor.
Carl: So where does it leave us?
George: Leaves us right here. Lacob is genuinely good at betting on people nobody believes in. Kerr with no experience. Chase Center with no public money. The Curry bet, twice, including once when the market tried to take him. Every time the room said no, Lacob said watch. And every time something remarkable happened around him. The question is whether he created the conditions for those miracles. Or whether he just had the sense to stay out of the way long enough for brilliant people to make them happen. Because one of those is a genius. And the other one is really good at hiring geniuses. Which, honestly? In this league? Hella hard to do.
Carl: (long beat) That’s almost a compliment.
George: I tell it like it is. Dynasties don’t belong to owners man, they just get to say they were there when it happened.
Carl: (Grinning mischievously) Yeah well when you get your billion dollar empire then I’ll listen to you.
George: Yeah let me hold a couple dollars then, big money heavyweight! You and Joe, huh! (Both men guffaw, Carl waves his hand dismissively and walks off down the tunnel).