PHOENIX - For Steve Kerr, every trip back to Arizona carries a little extra weight. Saturday was no different, with the Golden State Warriors coach back in Phoenix as the Suns opened their home schedule with a 131-122 win at Mortgage Matchup Center.
The visit turned into another stop on a basketball road that started in Tucson and eventually stretched across nearly four decades. Kerr got his only Division I scholarship offer from Arizona coach Lute Olson, and that decision set everything in motion: a college career with the Wildcats, a pro career that began in Phoenix, a front office run with the Suns, and then the championship years that followed in Chicago, San Antonio and Golden State.
“I always love coming back here,” Kerr said. “Coming back to Arizona, coming back to the arena where I spent three years as (general manager and president of basketball operations) and my original team as a player. The Suns organization always has a special place in my heart.”
Kerr also said, “There are a lot of people still here who I am friends with and look forward to seeing, and it’s always a great stop on the trip for me,”
His college years remain the real hinge point in the story. At Palisades High in Pacific Palisades, California, he drew only a handful of looks from smaller programs before Olson saw something others missed.
Kerr said, “I give literally most of the credit to coach Olson,” and added, “My time at U of A was life-changing. He gave me a scholarship when nobody else would, and then taught me everything about the game, being a team and being a part of something special.”
That partnership with Olson and forward Sean Elliott helped put Arizona on the map. During Kerr’s senior season in 1987-88, the Wildcats reached their first No. 1 national ranking and made the school’s first Final Four. Kerr also shot 57.3-percent from 3-point range that year, the only college season he played with the 3-point line, and that mark remains an NCAA Division I record.
The Suns used a second-round pick in the 1988 NBA Draft on Kerr, and Phoenix became the first stop of his professional life. He credited the late Cotton Fitzsimmons, a member of the Suns Ring of Honor, for helping shape the culture around him there.
One moment from his rookie season still sticks with him. Kerr said Fitzsimmons once called him out after he passed on a chance to go for a steal because he was worried about making a mistake.
“‘Kerr, you’re so conservative, I bet your parents voted for Goldwater,’” Kerr said.
For Kerr, the line captured Fitzsimmons perfectly.
“What a great way to use a metaphor to remember a principle of the game and of life with humor,” Kerr said. “But that was Cotton. We all loved him, and we miss him.”
Kerr’s playing career didn’t immediately take off. He was viewed as too slow for point guard and too small for shooting guard, and he saw limited minutes in his first five NBA seasons with the Suns, Cleveland Cavaliers and Orlando Magic.
Then came the Chicago Bulls and Phil Jackson’s triangle offense, where Kerr found his place and won three championships. He later added two more rings with the San Antonio Spurs, reuniting with Elliott, and he still owns the NBA record for best career 3-point field goal percentage at 45.4.
After his playing days and a stint as a TNT NBA analyst, Kerr returned to Phoenix as the Suns’ president of basketball operations from 2007-10. That period also brought a near miss that still feels like a what-if: Kerr and his staff believed they had an agreement with Golden State the night before the 2009 NBA Draft that would have sent Curry to Phoenix after the Warriors took him at No. 7.
When Curry was still on the board, the Suns’ draft room erupted. Then the mood flipped when Golden State said it wasn’t moving him.
Nash has said they believed Curry would become the next Steve Nash, the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player in Phoenix.
Kerr later landed the Warriors coaching job, and Curry was a major part of what drew him there. The pairing has since helped define one of the league’s most successful runs, and Kerr’s current roster still leans on the same thing he valued as a player: trust.
Warriors center Charles Bassey said Kerr’s style gives players room to breathe through mistakes. “He gives each player the confidence to go out there and play,” Bassey said. “He knows that we’re going to make mistakes, but he wants us to just play hard.”
Guard De’Anthony Melton, who is entering his third season with Golden State under Kerr after previously playing for the Suns, pointed to the coach’s background on the floor. “He played before, so I think he understands the nuances of basketball,” Melton said. “Sometimes you’re going to get down on yourself and sometimes you’ll feel on top of the world, but just making sure you maintain a level focus and making sure you’re dialed in on the right things.”
For Kerr, whose career has run from player to executive to broadcaster to one of the most accomplished coaches in the game, the circle keeps closing in Arizona. And as his time with Golden State inches toward its possible end after next season, the place where it all started still seems to hold the deepest meaning.
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