Steve Kerr and Kris Brown on Leadership, Purpose, and Innovation in Sport and Society

28:52Because what's happening right now is that either bots, right, or really extremist individuals who don't represent what 90 % of Americans think seem to control the narrative and they're cowing participation away from the average person. So we need to demonstrate, hey, look, there is this broad swath of support because it's there, but I don't think it's as obvious to the average American as it is to me and others in this movement. A couple of my team members I know will enthusiastically, as well as myself and Aria, try to help on this. Aria was the CEO of Do Something, which is the largest teen philanthropy network.

29:36So we will endeavor to help because I think it's very important. So, Chris, this is a classic possible question. Can you leave us with a final thought about what you think is possible to achieve if everything breaks humanity's way in the next 15 years? And then what's our first step to set off in that direction? In 15 years, if we focus on things like end family fire, safe storage, and the cultural piece of this, we have the ability to not only ensure that every firearm in every home is safely stored. And of course, that is cutting gun dust in half. But then on top of that, the technologies around controlling the supply chain, when we're talking about that issue, that is driving homicides across the country.

30:25So that's a different element of gun violence. We can materially decrease those homicides. We could stop trafficking if we wanted to with the right supply chain approach, augmented by technology. and the blue sky there is gun violence is not the number one killer of our kids. It's more in line with the experience of every other industrialized country across the globe. We have 25 times that. And I remember just to close, when I lived in Switzerland, I lived in that kind of environment. I lived in Zurich for seven years and I raised my daughters for seven years of their lives there. And I would often get asked the question when I was there by pretty sophisticated people who were traveling to the United States.

31:10Hey, Chris, where can I go in the United States and not get shot? And it was a totally legitimate question based on how their press covers our gun violence epidemic, which is gobsmacking to them. They do not understand it. And I will tell you, if you live in a society where gun violence isn't an everyday reality. you have a happiness quotient, a peace quotient that changes how you behave and it changes how you parent. What I want is for every American to regain that because we've lost it. We're not always cognizant of it, but I know too many people who stopped going to the movies or to concerts or look at where all of the exits are.

31:55That's not the land of the free and home of the brave. that's a stain on our country. We can reclaim that again. And that's, I think, worth doing. I mean, too often the people who are not fighting for gun violence prevention wrap themselves in freedom. And to your point, Chris, like actually what freedom means is to be a parent who doesn't have to worry about their kid going to school. That's what freedom is. And it's what we should all get to enjoy. Yeah, absolutely. Chris, thank you. Awesome. Yeah, thank you. Stay tuned for the second part of our interview with Steve Kerr. But first, a word from our sponsor.

32:38Steve, so my little brother, my little brother, he's 6 '9", he actually played basketball at Stanford. So he was also a Pac-10 when an existed athlete. And it's actually funny you were getting a snack. I remember visiting him at Stanford and he just like had like PB &Js in his bag. Like Dan Grunfeld came over and was like, I have 10 bananas. You want one? My brother's like, oh, I have 10 PB &Js. Like anyone? Like Lopez twins. You want to? And I was like, what is happening? But I get it. As a basketball player, you need to have snacks at all times. I'll say. I'll say. And so he had the privilege of working with some legendary coaches throughout his career and then actually became a coach as well.

33:16But you have worked, as you mentioned, with some of the greatest coaches in the NBA, Phil Jackson, Greg Popovich. is there any anecdote or lesson instilled in you by them that maybe went even beyond basketball strategy, leadership, et cetera? What did you learn from them that you still draw on today? Well, I think what I didn't realize at the time when I was playing for them was that the culture was really set by their values and their authenticity. And they were such different human beings. Phil was a beatnik in the seventies and he wrote a book and it was called Maverick. and it was about his hippie life.

33:53And he talked about, you know, taking mushrooms and psychedelics. And, you know, Pop was an Air Force cadet and military style. And, you know, it was two completely different approaches, but each was so authentic and so true to their values. And I don't think I realized it while I was playing for them. I think I sort of put it together after the fact. But when I became a coach and I asked both of those two and several other mentors, you know, what's the most important thing for me to know as a coach? Everybody said, be yourself. You have to be yourself. As soon as you try to be someone else and emulate someone, you're in trouble.

34:35And so I just think the authenticity of how you lead is the number one thing. I couldn't agree more. I mean, I was certainly not a leader on the same stage as you, but I absolutely remember trying to be other people. Like, oh my God, if I'm just as creative as them or if I was just like, forget it. No, me too. Me too. I mean, no, you're tempted to go that route because you see someone else who's so successful and you go, oh gosh, maybe I should be doing things more like them. But there's a huge difference between taking an idea from someone and actually trying to take on their persona. You know, I read about other coaches all the time and I love to read about different ways people are leading.

35:14But it's crucial to maintain your own approach and identity while instilling ideas that you learn from others. I strongly agree with both of you on this. A corollary that I think I may have put in The Startup Review, my very first book, is generally speaking, you want to play to your strengths versus try to paper over your weaknesses. You have a team to help with a different kind of the weaknesses side. That's right. But you want to play your strengths and you want to play to where you can be great. So true. And so the people that I hire to be on my staff, I try to hire people who can cover up my weaknesses and who have, you know, stronger abilities in certain areas where when we have a staff meeting and we're brainstorming, I can lean on them.

35:57And that's when it really clicks, I think, for a team, for a coaching staff, or any group of people. When everyone is comfortable that they can bring a strength and they don't have to bring everything, you know, especially the leader. Just knowing what you don't know is important and really empowering others to fill those blanks. It makes them feel good and it's better for everybody and it just strengthens the whole group. A thousand percent. So Steve, we don't normally do this, but I want to invite our showrunner, Sean, who has not only been a Warriors fan since the 80s, but who was also a collegiate basketball player himself.

36:34So I'll resume after him, but leave the basketball nerdy question to him. All right. Let's go, Sean. All right. All right. Honored to cameo for a second here. And great to see you, Steve. You too. So I can think of a few of many moments where as a coach, your instincts completely changed the game. So there's Iguodala in the 2015 finals, the Bogut versus Tony Allen matchup, which was pretty innovative and unusual in that game versus Memphis. practice then letting your players run the huddles versus the suns again these are just a few of like many come to mind so as fans we ask and we hear about the in-game instincts of a player so often but less about the in-game instincts of coaches so really the question i wanted to ask you was that like in those instances and others can you talk about your in-game instincts as a coach like how much of it is planned and how much of it is pure gut and feel in the moment yeah Yeah.

37:33No, it's a great question. We go into every game with a game plan, you know, but you know the old line from Mike Tyson, everyone's got to play until you get punched in the face, right? So you have to be ready to adjust. So you try to envision, you know, what could go wrong. For example, you know, foul trouble for Steph Curry. If he picks up two quick fouls, how are we going to handle that? It depends on our opponent, right? If it's an opponent that we think he can survive against, maybe because of the personnel, I'll let him play. If it's a team that draws a lot of fouls and it's really a difficult team to guard one-on-one, I'll probably take him out.

38:14And so you kind of go into these games with an idea of a game plan, a rotation, and then you learn over time your team. You learn them really well, both individually and collectively. and hopefully, you know, as you go through the season, you learn more and more things, you pick up things, and by the playoffs, you really have a great feel for the adjustments that you have to make. And then, of course, it's up to the gods, you know, the ball has to go in, and that's why every coach is subject to incredible scrutiny and criticism, because, you know, we make decisions that all we're trying to do is give ourselves the best chance.

38:54that doesn't mean it's going to work. So you give yourself the best chance, you think. And then if it doesn't work, I tell the players all the time, the reason they pay us a lot of money is because people care and they're emotional and passionate. Part of my job is to just take it, just accept that we're going to take a lot of heat as coaches. They're going to take a lot of heat as players. This is the business. but you just support each other and live with the results. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Thanks so much. Yeah, thank you. As you can tell, Sean, for the super nerdy basketball questions, I think that was a three-pointer on that one.

39:36But that actually brings me to another question here, which is, you know, one of the challenging change of landscape that social media brings and kind of the modern world of tech is there's this flood of attention, participation, You know, athletes face, you know, judgment and criticism, especially on social media. So how do you help do the leadership on that part of it? Yeah, it was it was really easy. And in my day, you know, if you if you wanted to avoid it, you didn't turn on talk radio, which was like maybe from two to five in the afternoon. And you didn't pick up the local newspaper. When I was a player, I would literally pick up USA Today because I knew there wouldn't be any stories about our team, but I could see all the box scores and the score.

40:21You know, this is pre-internet, obviously. Once the internet came around, it changed everything. And our players now, they have this judgment and criticism at their fingertips. I go in at halftime, everybody's on their phone. It's just the way we live. So, you know, we use some humor sometimes to try to, you know, I'll just go in and make a joke. What are people saying about me on social media? You know, did I get any likes on, you know, on social media in that first half for my decision making? You know, guys will kind of chuckle and put their phones down. But the biggest thing, honestly, is giving them the reminder that they control the input, right?

41:00I mean, you don't have to look at this stuff. And when I got off of social media four years ago, it's the best decision I made because I immediately eliminated, I don't know, 80 or 90 % of the criticism that I was reading about myself. And I don't care who you are, you're a human being, it affects you. But the other part of it is just, and we tell our team every year, you know, this is a hard job. It's a dream job, but it's a hard job. You know, you're going to get injured. You're going to get booed. You're going to get traded, you're going to get cut, and people on social media are going to destroy you.

41:38But this is why you are making the amount of money you are. And that doesn't justify these crazy people out there who are, you know, making death threats if you lose a game. But it's a reminder, like, if you want to do this for a living, this is the job. And now you have to learn how to navigate it. And, you know, that's kind of the foundation that we lay for our guys. So the people who listen to Possible are nonprofit leaders like Chris. They are technologists who are building technology companies. And Reid and I, what we try to do with this podcast is to sort of bring out everyone's better angels.

42:15Like, what is possible with your company, with your NGO, with your voice as a citizen? How can we often use technology to sort of build this better future? And so you cannot do that unless your organization, your company is a strong team. And so I think so many people look to you, how do you build these incredible teams? And, you know, the obvious is like, well, you know, you get some good players, you look for raw talent, you look for good statistics. Like, what are the intangibles you think that are sometimes overlooked when you're building those championship caliber teams? Well, the number one commodity, for lack of a better word, in the NBA is a superstar player with high character.

42:52You know, they're just really hard to find. People like Steph Curry or Michael Jordan or Tim Duncan. By the way, I've followed all of those three through my career. And it's the reason I've had success is because I've been on the same team as these guys. But I've recognized that internal leadership from your best players is crucial. You know, for a company out there, every hire is so important, but especially the key people you lean on. The values that you share, that you espouse, it's really important that you share those values with your team leaders, your people, your internal leadership. And those values have to come alive every day.

43:32They can't be words on a wall. You know, I've played on teams where there's slogans written on a wall and you're like, I don't feel that every day. I think the thing I've learned from my coaches is whatever your values are, if those things are coming alive every single day, then your players, your employees, they feel those values. And then it's like, oh, wait a second, this is real. And then the authenticity of the relationship day after day, the communication. If all that is real, then people look forward to coming to work and working together. Having said that, if I didn't have Steph Curry, I would have been fired years ago.

44:09So you got to have a good product. You know, you got to you have to have talent. You have to have ideas. And that's why it's really a collaboration. You know, it's multiple people and dynamics coming together at once. And even though we all try to make that happen, it's not always possible. Absolutely. Yeah. And by the way, I've met Steph. He's a treasure. He's incredible. He's incredible. So, you know, the NBA has had a long history of adopting advanced analytics, AI, now taking this step further. You know, there was one example, Daryl Morey of the Philadelphia 76ers said that LLM models are taken into account as a vote in any decision from draft picks to game strategy.

44:53So how has this moneyball kind of approach fundamentally changed how teams make decisions today? When I got here 11 years ago, we had one analytics person. Now we have a whole department. My coaching staff and I had no idea how to read the numbers that they were feeding us. There were all these figures that 11 years ago were not familiar to us. We were versed in the basic box score, field goal attempts, field goal percentage, the stuff that's been tracked forever. So all of a sudden, they're giving us these numbers, points per possession, points per shot that didn't make much sense to us. So we started in on it, you know, for me 11 years ago when I began coaching.

45:36And what we realized was we needed coaches who were younger and more versed in computers and analytics. So we started hiring some former college basketball players who had a better knowledge of all this stuff to join our staff. We also built up our analytics team. So now we have a whole team of analytics people and we have two in every meeting, every coach's meeting. And we have young coaches who not only have been raised in the analytics world, but have played basketball using modern basketball analytics. And so my knowledge of this area now from 11 years ago is just dramatically different. I can actually speak the language.

46:22And so it's easier to parse through the information. We get reams of data. I know now what matters, what doesn't, just through watching tape, learning the language, conversing with the analytics team. And we're getting all kinds of stuff every day, some of which I use with the team. And because our players now have been versed in it, they too recognize it and understand it. So I guess it's like every other movement, right? You just people are now learning and we're learning together and it's becoming more mainstream. Well, to even take it a step further, so we heard that the Warriors are using AI-powered robots in some practice sessions for drills like rebounding and simulating defensive plans.

47:05Tell me how true that is. What has that experience been like if you guys do that? And do you think sort of robots will be part of the routine going forward? It sounds like science fiction. It's not happening yet, but it's going to happen. And last year at the NBA Tech Summit, the reason this got out there is because I did a segment where I was commanding all these robots on defensive drills, but they weren't actually there yet. So we haven't actually done it yet, but the robots do exist. And we are studying more and more about what's possible in terms of what we can do on the practice floor, what we can do with our players and their development.

47:46And so it's going to be really interesting to see what comes of it over the next decade, because this stuff changes and happens so quickly, as you guys know, much better than I do. Well, that's what I was going to say. I mean, there's there's all kinds of technology. I mean, even the nutrition science and the different ways athletes eat or prepare or recover, like all of that is science and technology marching forward. And so when you think about this, is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing? Like, how do you see technology and the NBA progressing going forward? It's a great thing. We have a guy on our performance staff who monitors all of our players throughout practice.

48:24He's on his computer screen and the players are wearing monitors underneath their practice jerseys. And we are monitoring everything that's happening with their heart and their breath and their energy load. And we are now leaning on our performance team to dictate our practice schedule every day. Not the details of what we're doing, but the output physically that our players put out. So in the past, it was up to coaches to kind of guess, you know, how we have to pace our players through the 82 game season. And you have to know when to practice harder, when to practice lighter. Well, now we have evidence and we have experts who are really dictating this stuff.

49:04And I think it's awesome because it takes a lot of pressure off me in terms of, you know, what we're doing with the players. We have a formula now and we think we can keep our players healthier as a result. What's one of the surprising results that come out of the kind of personal performance monitoring? Yeah, so something that came out this year, we have a coaching retreat every year and our analytics team shares different bits of data. And one of the things that jumped out to me this year was that there is a huge difference in athleticism in terms of quick burst, you know, how fast a guy is.

49:42And then reaction time. So some players have better feel than others, right? So they're in the right spot before the play happens because they recognize it. Other guys maybe don't see that, but they're more athletic. Okay. And every team has this dynamic. And I was, you know, when I played, I was a slower guy who knew where to be, right? And every team has faster guys who, if you have faster guys who know where to be, then you've got something, right? That's kind of what you're looking for. But the faster guys and more athletic guys who don't maybe know where to be, they have to use way more energy to get to that spot.

50:21And so what our analytics team shared with us was that, you know, some of the players around the NBA who are the most athletic and the most explosive are incapable of playing longer minutes because they're constantly reacting instead of being proactive. I thought that was fascinating. And I never would have put that together without, you know, that data. Absolutely. And the other thing that I think is only a question of time. And so the question is, has it started yet or not? Is with AI, we've got this whole multimodal thing going. And there's a variety of ways it's already functional, ways that people don't expect.

51:00Like one of the things that I've said a few different places is something I learned from Ethan Mullick, who's a professor at Horton, about like using cameras to study construction sites. Have you guys run the game footage through AI kind of multimodal kind of analysis and so forth? You will if you haven't. Yeah. But have you done it yet? And has there been anything interesting out of it? Yeah, the league has cameras in all 30 arenas that gather all kinds of data. For example, one of the bits of data that we didn't have 11 years ago or maybe 15 years ago was we know exactly how many miles Steph Curry runs every game.

51:42And then we collect that for the entire year. Every year, he's number one in the league in the most mileage run. We didn't have any of that back then. We also can tell the speed that players are running at. And so we know who's running fastest and how fast players are running today compared to 20 years ago. The game is dramatically faster now. We also have in our practice facility, we have cameras with facial recognition. And every time a player on our team comes in to our practice arena or practice facility and they take a shot, that shot is recorded onto a program. And so at the end of, if we want, every day, but we probably look at it once every couple of weeks, we have every shot that a player has taken in practice.

52:27How many, how many he made, if he missed, was it missing left, missing right, missing long, what the arc of the shot was. And then we get together with our coaches and we realize, all right, we have all this data. How can we help our players now with shooting? We also kind of know which guys are working harder than others, you know, and it's pretty interesting. We never had any of this stuff before. And so we've got a lot of data, a lot of information at our fingertips. Another kind of obvious one is, you know, you have opponents. Have you done any of that analysis on opponent players too? Because that would have been, that is the next logical step out of this kind of performance analysis.

53:08Yeah. So because we have the cameras in every arena, you have the data available on your opponents as well, you know, only from games. You use the data to help build game plans. You know, now with proof, not just scouting, let's say a guy has a tendency to, you know, go right, drive right instead of drive left. You know, in the old days, you watched a lot of tape, you watched that player, and you tell your team, hey, this guy likes to drive right, so share that. You know, now we know exactly on every drive the exact percentage. Maybe it's 51%, maybe it's 72%. So that influences how you approach the game.

53:51If it's 72%, you're definitely forcing him to go the opposite way where he's uncomfortable. So it's not just eyes, it's eyes and data. I mean, it takes scouting reports to another level. Yeah, completely different. The scouting stuff must be. And then, by the way, on the biometrics, since the players are wearing the biometrics, do you data correlate the biometrics with, like, the shots and discover things from those correlations? The correlation between, like, fatigue, you mean? Yes. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, fortunately, we have professionals who do that. Literally, the people who are monitoring all that, because I wouldn't know the first thing about how to put this all together.

54:32But I have conversations frequently with our guys who are monitoring it. And they'll share with me, like, hey, after 20 minutes of play, this guy's shot tends to fade because he's tired. And you already have a sense as a coach of how long a guy's capable of playing. But some of this stuff can be really revealing. Like, Steph is an incredibly well-conditioned athlete. And he's the exception rather than the rule. He still shoots really well even after playing 35 minutes. But you definitely learn there's kind of limitations on effectiveness of a certain player once he gets past that threshold. And as I said, now we have a performance guy on a computer sharing that knowledge because he also has access to the analytics team that tells him the shooting percentage after a certain period of time.

55:23So it's crazy the difference between now and even 20 years ago what we were doing. By the way, I'm envisioning because, you know, we have this kind of star athlete within like AI researchers and so forth. I'm just thinking about what the parallels between what you're doing here and what you might do at an AI company with, you know, the person who's being paid. So are there? Have you thought of any? I mean, we're doing amplification and code agents and so forth, but there's probably some natural things about watching performance of how you build code, build, do air research and so forth, biometrics, what the outputs look like, what the fitness function looks like, and then kind of coaching the better performance.

56:01And given that the salary levels are, if anything, some of them probably even bigger. So the function of like, for example, should you actually have this whole get up? Should you have coaches and so forth trying to improve it? The answer is absolutely yes, given that it's the economic thing that shows that performance. Yeah. Let's move to rapid fire.

56:27So is there a movie, song, or book that fills you with optimism for the future? I just read Gentleman in Moscow. And I don't know if you've read it. It's a great novel about a guy who's stuck in a hotel, you know, for his basically most of his adult life. And he has a great line. He says, control your circumstances or your circumstances will control you. There's a bunch of wisdom in that. And he makes this wonderful life out of his own circumstances, which aren't ideal, but it's a great reminder that we will adapt, you know, as we go. And I believe in humanity. I believe in people. You know, if we're able to avoid some AI apocalypse that I have been reading about lately, then I believe that human beings will figure this out and we will be able to forge a good future.

57:15Excellent book. And we can talk to you about that AI apocalypse. So you're not worried about that one. Thank you. Thank you. Question number two, is there a question that you wish people asked you more often? Yeah, I think the criticism that I get, it's always funny to me because it's like, this is all we do. In my world, it's like, everyone's an expert out there. And I get it because I'm a sports fan. And so sometimes I sit there watching a football game like, why did the coach do that? I get it. But it's like, I wish people would say, why are you doing what you're doing instead of, you know, what the hell are you doing?

57:51Because we've got lots of answers. Exactly. Where do you see progress or momentum outside of basketball that inspires you? I see a younger generation of leaders, the people who started March for Our Lives, the Parkland kids. When I see young leaders like that, it gives me hope. We have not left a great society for our children, obviously. So when I see young people who are leading like Greta Thunberg or the March for Our Lives group, I'm hugely inspired. And I believe that there's a lot of good that will come in our future from those young leaders. Well, Steve, as one of those people who dutifully bought a Kerr Popovich 2020 shirt back in the day, I just want to say, like, you also have just inspired a generation of people that you can be literally working at the highest levels and with integrity, standing up for what you believe in.

58:49And so, you know, we appreciate it 100%. And our final question, because I think amidst these challenging times, we do need optimism and hope, and we have to think that the future is going to be better. You know, can you leave us with your final thought on what you think is possible to achieve if everything breaks humanity's way in the next 15 years? And what's the first step to get there? Oh, man, what a tough question. It's really quick. Just 30 seconds. Let us know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, going back to Chris Brown and the idea and gun violence prevention is a great metaphor for lots of issues that we have.

59:24I think the majority of us are actually connected. We really are. We all want the same thing. We want safety. We want, you know, family. We want health. We want opportunity. In my view, can we cut through this world of technology that is purposely dividing us along with the people who are doing so. I believe something will happen because in our nation's history, things have shifted all the time. We've had some really dark times and this is a tough one, but I think things will shift and that will be revealed somehow over the next 15 years. I certainly hope so. Steve, thank you so much for being here.

1:00:02Yeah. Awesome. Thank you guys so much. Really enjoyed it.

1:00:31Thank you. Sayida Sepieva, Ian Alice, Greg Viato, Parth Patil, and Ben Relis. And a big thanks to Khalid Robinson, Graham Cruz, Laura Marquez Jackson, Georgette D. Brown, and Jessica Gerber.