With the announcement that Kevin Durant will leave the OKC Thunder to join the Golden State Warriors, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr officially becomes the luckiest man in the world. This is not to take anything at all away from Kerr’s accomplishments as a player, a league executive or a head coach. His record in all those areas speaks for itself. And Kerr’s childhood was marked by tragedy, so one might consider all his adult good fortune merely a way of evening the score.
But the winner of six NBA championship rings — five as a player and one (so far) as a coach — just won the Kevin Durant Derby, too. And that’s really piling it on. The Warriors won a record 73 games this season before falling short in the NBA Finals. Now they have not just Steph Curry, who won the last two NBA MVP Awards, but the guy who won the MVP before that. The rich get richer and the lucky get luckier. Here are just the top 5 reasons that Steve Kerr is the luckiest man in the world.
— Steve Kerr played the kick-out shooting option when Michael Jordan drove to the basket on the Chicago Bulls’ second run of Jordan-Pippen-led championships. That is a very good job if you can get it — ask John Paxson. Jordan could free up some space, you know?
— Steve Kerr left the Bulls to go to the San Antonio Spurs — the year after Tim Duncan arrived in San Antonio. Tim Duncan. He won two more rings there.
— Steve Kerr was given control of the Golden State Warriors in 2014, after Mark Jackson was dismissed for butting heads with management. The team was seasoned and ready. Kerr won the title in his rookie year as head coach.
— Steve Kerr was reportedly Phil Jackson‘s first choice for head coach when Jackson took over as chief of basketball for the New York Knicks. Instead of the basking in the glory of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, Kerr could have been losing sleep over Carmelo Anthony and, well, the Knicks circa 2014.
— Steve Kerr officially won 24 games in a row as coach of the Warriors to start the 2015 season, even though Luke Walton coached all those games (while Kerr was recovering from surgery). Walton gave the Warriors back to Kerr with a 39-4 record.
Kerr, by the way, received the news about Durant while on vacation in Hawaii.
