The report says Steve Kerr entered the Beverly Wilshire with a secret: he had decided to retire as head coach of the Golden State Warriors when the season ended. The conversation took place the day before the team’s first postseason play-in game in Los Angeles, and the report says the end of the season would also mark the end of his 12-year run with the Warriors.
According to the report, Kerr sat in the hotel’s restaurant looking subdued, telling the writer, “I think it’s over,” and placing the odds at 95 percent that he would step down. The report says he wore a sweatsuit among business travelers and appeared melancholic, exhausted by a disappointing season and mourning what he described as fraying connections within the team.
The report recalls Kerr sifting through memories of highs and flow states, including the night Klay Thompson scored 37 points in a quarter and teammates reacting as if “in the presence of God.” Kerr is quoted in the report saying that when players reach a flow state it is more than mechanics and that “there’s some mysterious spiritual thing.”
The report says Kerr drove from Beverly Hills to Draymond Green’s house for a team dinner described as a last supper, noting a ride that took him past his old junior high and back through memories of childhood homes on hills with sweeping views. The report traces his early life between Pacific Palisades and Cairo as the family followed his father, Malcolm Kerr, who became president of the American University of Beirut in 1982. The report also notes his childhood home burned in the Palisades Fire last year.
According to the report, Kerr’s path to college basketball was uncertain: coming out of high school no major coach expected him to play at the next level, Gonzaga brought him to a tryout where John Stockton embarrassed him, and only Cal State Fullerton and Arizona showed interest. The report says Arizona coach Lute Olson believed he could change the culture, but Kerr struggled in practice, averaged just under 6 points a game and later faced the family trauma when an Iranian-sponsored gunman shot Malcolm Kerr. The report says Kerr’s sister told biographer Scott Howard-Cooper that Steve was “just a boy” when he learned the news.
