Tag: Steve Kerr

‘The Victory Machine: The Making and Unmaking of the Warriors Dynasty’ by Ethan Sherwood Strauss (2020)

The rise of the Golden State Warriors from laughing stock to one of the all time great NBA teams is one of the most interesting sports stories of the 2010’s. They’ve crashed back to Earth in the current season, having won 4 of the last 6 NBA Championships, and gotten to the finals the other 2 years.

Ethan Sherwood Strauss is a reporter for the Athletic who has covered the Warriors throughout this period and is perfectly placed to tell the definitive tale of this rise.  While this is an interesting, insightful and highly-readable book, its probably easier to describe the book by what it isn’t. It’s not a detailed, year by year, account of the rise, success and fall of the Warriors. It doesn’t look in-depth at all of the key personnel with limited coverage of the likes of Steph Curry, and Klay Thompson. 

The introduction of the book is simply fantastic.  A short, sharp, assessment of life in the NBA and the many factors that go into determining the success, or otherwise, of a player and a team.

In charting the rise of the Warriors, Strauss concentrates on the behind the scenes operations and business side of the game. The story begins with the change in ownership as Peter Guber and Joe Lacob took control of the team, against the odds, ahead of Larry Ellison, the Oracle billionaire. Strauss traces the draft picks, the trades that were and, maybe more importantly, the trades that weren’t as Lacob and General Manager Bob Myers put together a world class team.  Strauss also zooms in on a few key personnel – Lacob, Myers and coach Steve Kerr in particular – as the book develops.

More than anything, the book focuses on Kevin Durant, his importance to the Warriors, his relationships with the fans, the media and Strauss himself.  Durant’s signing turned the Warriors from best team in the NBA to one of strongest in history.  Strauss paints a picture of a disgruntled superstar, unhappy that anything he did at the Warriors was unlikely to earn him the love and plaudits enjoyed by arguably lesser players.  The recounting of Strauss’ own history with Durant drags a little as the book starts to feel more like a collection of anecdotes than a history of the team.

Throughout the book there is excellent, insightful writing and analysis. It gives a real behind the scenes look at the team, and the wider NBA that you won’t find in other books.  He covers the importance of a player’s relationship with his sneaker sponsor, the role of agents, the changing nature of ownership and a range of other broad, fascinating topics.

If you are a casual basketball fan however, and can’t say which years the Warriors won the NBA Championship, this book may leave you scratching your heads. There’s quite a lot of assumed knowledge which makes this a fascinating contemporary account but one that may not make much sense if read 10 years from now.

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‘Betaball: How Silicon Valley and Science Built One of the Greatest Basketball Teams in History’ by Erik Malinowski (2018)

As a kid, Channel 4’s decision in 1995 to start showing the NBA led me to fall in love with the sport of basketball.   The Bulls of Jordan’s second stint were the dominant team with Shaq led Orlando Magic also a particular favourite. Its only in recent years that I have rekindled a keen interest in the sport and got properly interested again after getting to watch Team USA play live at the Rio Olympics.  This season Sky Sports have bought the rights to show NBA games in Ireland so I finally have regular access to games again (and highlight shows at more Irish timezone friendly hours).

All of which means I kinda missed the rise of the Golden State Warriors – all of a sudden they were not just a new Championship contender, but a contender for the best team of all time.   I was really excited to read Betaball and figure out just how this happened.

Betaball is a very enjoyable read.  It’s a detailed retelling of the rise of the Warriors under its current ownership and the key personnel decisions that led to the creation of an elite team.  It’s also a pretty detailed blow-by-blow account of the key matches of the 14/15 and 15/16 seasons.

The book however promised more with its subheading of ‘How Silicon Valley and Science Built One of the Greatest Basketball Teams in History’.   The book talks about the use of analytics, the reliance placed on unconventional hires and the importance of a harmonious working environment it.  While there is a lot of talk about collecting and using data there really isn’t much insight into how or why their use analytics helped them win.  There are suggestions that the Warriors were better at focusing at rest and conditioning than other teams may have been but the thread isn’t fully drawn out in the book.

In many ways the story feels quite conventional – a new owner arrives and makes some really good personnel decisions, the unrealised potential of an existing player (Steph Curry) is finally realised, some really good draft picks (including a bit of luck in Green turning out better than anyone expected) are made and free agency is used wisely to secure the final missing pieces.

The book does give some interesting insights into the managerial and organisational culture introduced by the new owners.  In particular it was interesting how the new owners waited a full season before making radical changes.  It’s rare to see a sports team owner show such patience and not immediately try to remodel the team in their own image.  The process for decision making seems to have been very collegiate with everyone seemingly willing to listen to all viewpoints before making key decisions.

I don’t mean to be overly negative.  If the book was subtitled differently this would be a more positive review about how interesting the book was, the keen insight it gives into Steve Kerr in particular, and the interesting ways in which small changes can have a big impact on an team’s performance.

Overall, Betaball is a very interesting look at the rise of the Warriors, but not quite the book its subtitle promises it would be.

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