Steve Kerr Diagramed The First Plays Of The Warriors Dynasty Using A Charcuterie Board


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Steve Kerr‘s first plays as Warriors head coach featured Stephen Curry as an almond. The future coach of the year made dried cranberries defend him.

Baxter Holmes wrote a fascinating story for ESPN that explored the origins of Steve Kerr’s offensive scheme for the Golden State Warriors, and it turns out a confident Warriors fan working in a kitchen and a charcuterie board were all big factors in the scheme’s debut.

Kerr was sitting in the Oakland airport back in 2014 at a bar called Vino Volo when a young Warriors fan named Kevin Ninkovich was bartending. Kerr and another man ordered two glasses of wine and a charcuterie board, and when Ninkovich brought it out to them he asked what the new Warriors coach would do to the team’s offense. Because he had some thoughts.


Kerr, too, had some ideas. And for the first time, he took them out of his head and put them into the real world.

“Funny you should mention that,” Kerr replies. “We’ve got some ideas. Here, I’ll show you.”

And then, as Fraser looks on, Kerr swipes clear the wooden board, casting the handle in the role of a basket. He positions the board’s dried cranberries and marcona almonds into two five-on-five teams in a half-court setting, with the cranberries relegated to defense. Suddenly, almond Stephen Curry, hovering near the top of the key, swings an imaginary ball to almond Klay Thompson on the wing, then cuts to the near corner while Thompson dumps it down to almond Andrew Bogut. Thompson and Curry set picks for each other along the perimeter, while Bogut weighs his options: find open almonds or back down his helpless cranberry.

These, Kerr explains, are aspects of the triangle offense, which he played in during the Bulls’ 1990s heyday. But then Kerr pulls back, giving the noshes a breather. He notes that the Warriors would be foolish to run the triangle exclusively; it wouldn’t best use their dangerous gunners. No, Kerr says. They’ll run a hybrid.

It’s a super cool story and a fascinating look at the uncertain origins of what now seems so inevitable. The dominance of Golden State’s offense is commonplace now, but looking at the beginning of what’s become the most feared — and perhaps replicated — offense of the decade offers a unique peak into how basketball and the NBA evolves.

Kerr’s ability as a coach has been proven time and time again in his tenure with the Warriors, but a story that looks back at his first days in charge when he had no experience as a head coach and everything was an experiment. It’s all worked so well, but sometimes it’s easy to forget how hard it is to create lasting change in sports.

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