Warriors coach Steve Kerr is taking advice from his son, Nicholas

SANTA CRUZ — Nicholas Kerr was on the phone with his mom, Margot, and happened to be watching the Warriors.

It was the December game against the Clippers in which a Paul George 3-pointer in the final seconds buried the Warriors. Kerr noticed his father, longtime Warriors coach Steve Kerr, losing his temper on the sidelines.

“Dad has to watch his body language,” he said over the phone to his mom.

The next day, his dad called.

“Mom said you were mad at my body language,” Steve said. “You’re right.”

A few days later, when the Warriors returned home to host the Portland Trail Blazers, Steve coached with his son’s message fresh in his mind.

“I made a really conscious effort to stay off the officials and generally have a better air about me because of what he said,” Steve said. “I listen to his advice just like he listens to mine.”

Steve, 58, and Nicholas, 31, have worked in the same organization since 2018. Now closer than ever to his father’s job in Golden State, Nicholas is in his first season as the head coach of the G League Santa Cruz Warriors, the minor league affiliate that plays 70 miles south.

Steve has navigated their new relationship carefully. He avoids critiquing his son’s coaching, preferring to listen rather than talk.

Asked how often Steve gives him advice, Nicholas said, “never, actually.”

“The No. 1 thing is I’m a dad,” Steve said in a recent sit-down.

Steve Kerr, head coach of the Golden State Warriors, and his son Nicholas Kerr, head coach of the Santa Cruz Warriors, talk on the court at Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group) 

The truth is, basketball bonded them together a long time ago.

“From the moment I could walk,” Nicholas said.

In the 1990s, when his dad was traveling 100 nights a year as one of the most efficient 3-point shooters in the NBA and a five-time champion with the Chicago Bulls and San Antonio Spurs, Nicholas would watch every game he could. As long as he could see his dad on the screen, it felt like they were in the same room.

“That probably helped fill the void,” Nicholas said. “It still does.”

Back then, Nicholas was sure he’d one day have the same job as his dad: NBA player.

Things changed when Steve retired after the 2003 season and the family moved to San Diego. Steve quickly found a new gig; he started coaching his son’s team.

“That was his first coaching job,” Nicholas said. “Nobody talks about that one. The sixth grade San Diego Wildcats. We only had six or seven players.”

What was Steve Kerr like as a middle school coach?

“The same as he is now,” Nicholas said. “Patient. But he did break a clipboard, even then. He’d get upset if effort was low. That’s the only time I remember him really snapping.”

When Nicholas got to high school, he asked his dad to stop coaching him. Looking back, he’s not sure why. But his decision came at the same time he realized he’d never accomplish his dream of following in his dad’s footsteps as a pro basketball player.

Perhaps he wanted to forge his own identity, an identity separate from being Steve Kerr’s son.

“I’m sure that was part of it,” he said.

Nicholas Kerr speaks with forward Patrick Baldwin Jr. at a practice during the 2022-23 season. (Photo: Courtesy of Golden State Warriors) 

After high school, Nicholas played sparingly at the University of San Diego for parts of three seasons, then appeared in seven games during one season at Cal to finish his collegiate career.

His dream of playing professionally long gone, he instead pursued his dad’s second career and became a graduate assistant at Cal. He soon got his first NBA job as a quality assurance coach with the Spurs under Gregg Popovich, who had coached Steve almost 20 years earlier.

Nicholas joined the Warriors organization to work in player development in 2018. Now the head coach in Santa Cruz, he is often coaching the same players his dad coached the night before.

“I think both of them are the same, really calm, but when they need to be explosive, they are,” said Gui Santos, a 21-year-old up-and-comer who has played for both the Kerr coaches while shuttling between Warriors’ clubs this year.

In November, the G League Warriors were buzzing. Nicholas won his first five games as a head coach and Santa Cruz jumped out to an 11-4 start, but their title hopes ended in the Showcase Cup Tournament semifinals on Dec. 21. They’ve since gone 9-7 to begin the regular season as of Friday afternoon.

Nicholas runs many of the same plays as his dad, largely to keep things simple for the players who shuttle back and forth.

“We’re definitely similar,” Nicholas said. “He’s more mature than me. I’m still living from possession to possession.”

Nicholas tries to watch as many Warriors games as he can. Before Draymond Green was suspended in December, Nicholas thought his dad’s team was “about to turn a corner.” Green returned in January and the Warriors are starting to find their groove.

“Steph is still Steph,” Nicholas said. “They just have to find the right balance around him.”

But he and his dad say they rarely talk about that stuff. On a typical phone call, the conversations aren’t work-related.

Their personal relationship has remained “exactly the same,” Steve said. “Nothing will change … He’s my son and I’m his dad.”

Nicholas is not yet sure if he wants to follow in Steve’s footsteps as an NBA head coach; he’s happy with his wife and 1-year-old daughter in Santa Cruz, but he knows it’s a temporary job, good for two or three years and then it’s time to move on.

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Perhaps Nicholas will be given an NBA opportunity elsewhere, maybe as a head coach one day.

Just imagine the dynamic if both Kerrs are on the court and Nicholas’ team takes the lead on a controversial call: Steve, breaking his clipboard, screaming at the officials, and Nicholas just a few feet away, giving him a glance that says, “settle down, dad.”

And a family gathering later that night, where they’ll turn on some baseball or soccer, pause the game for dinner, interact with family and then get back to the TV, just as they’ve always done.

“Maybe it’s symptomatic of our relationship that when we’re together we don’t really talk, we just hang out and watch sports,” Nicholas said. “Nothing actually needs to be said. He’s a good dad. I’m a lucky man.”

Steve feels the same way.

“There’s a saying that you’re only as happy as your least happy child,” Steve said. “So much of being a parent is just wanting your kids to be happy, in a relationship they’re happy with, in a profession they’re happy with. For my wife Margot and me, to see Nick doing what he’s always wanted to do, a first-time dad, the three of them living in Santa Cruz, loving their lives together, it doesn’t get any better as a parent. That’s all you want.”

Nicholas Kerr, head coach of the Santa Cruz Warriors, and his father Steve Kerr, head coach of the Golden State Warriors, meet on the court at Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)