OAKLAND — The Warriors’ slogan Strength in Numbers is plastered outside of Oracle Arena, on bright yellow t-shirts in every seat, on souvenir cups. It’s everywhere.
Golden State’s marketing department wasn’t behind this motto. Steve Kerr coined it.
“The inspiration was not financially motivated or I would have trademarked it before the team stole it from me,” joked Kerr on Friday.
Golden State used Strength in Numbers to propel them to a decisive 104-89 Game 1 victory last night. The Warriors’ bench outscored Cleveland’s 45-10, and backup point guard Shaun Livingston was the team’s leading scorer with 20 points. The bench saved the Warriors from an NBA Finals loss. Not to call him some mastermind of sorts, but Kerr originally planned on all of this happening.
“I looked at the roster, and we had so many guys who can play. It seemed obvious that if we played 10, 11 people every night at a high level for shorter minutes that we could wear people down,” the head coach said.
Kerr was hired in May of 2014, a franchise-altering month Warriors fans will forget again. Kerr has always said he picked up his coaching style from when he was a player under legends such as Phil Jackson in Chicago, Gregg Popovich in San Antonio, Lute Olson at the University of Arizona and Cotton Fitzsimmons in Kerr’s early playing days in Phoenix. All four had their own unique styles, and all four are pretty damn intense.
But the 50-year-old has always been known for his sense of humor and he wasn’t going to curb that enthusiasm for laughter just because he was the head coach in charge. So right before he was about to meet the team for the first time, he and a team of video editors spliced up a short film of all the Warriors’ players all dominating on the court. The goal of the movie was for Warriors players to quickly get over the loss of Mark Jackson and buy right into Kerr’s Strength in Numbers philosophy.
“So I think what happened was I put together a video to show the team on the eve of training camp, our first year, and I wanted kind of them to get a feel for who we are as a staff,” Kerr said. “So there was some humor involved and some clips from movies, and I had Marv Albert narrate it. So we worked pretty hard on this thing.
“Oh, can you imagine Marv saying Strength in Numbers? Strength in Numbers! It sounds way more dramatic when Marv says it. It was just — I don’t know. Marv and I got together and I sent him a script and we kind of talked about it. But the Strength in Numbers stuff just kind of came up based on the roster and how deep we were.”
Picturing the players’ reaction to hearing the legendary Mar Albert on this video is a trip. They must’ve been howling. Make sure you listen to Kerr’s impersonation at the top of the page.
Honestly, one of the best parts about covering the Warriors is Kerr’s press conferences. He’s a joy to interact with and he’s always shedding new light on the makeup of this team.