Does Steve Kerr have the most well-rounded basketball career ever?

[XTC]

KC Jones

NCAA
2x Champ
2x All CBA

NBA
8x NBA champ
Hall of fame

Coach
4x NBA champ
Voted 15 greatest coaches

[rk2023]

Id go with Bird or West here. Perhaps Walton if we include broadcasting, but Kerr is an overlooked shout

[AmIWrongDude]

Steve Kerr was a great role player, coach of a dynasty, and he chills with the hottest dudes everyone knows that

[sp6r=underrated]

Los Angeles is literally the epicenter of the modern NBA.

OT: This is true and it is a good example of the power and limits of fundamentals and path dependency.

I've lived in SF for almost 15 years. The Bay Area is the tech capital of the world. It became a tech hub because of fundamentals: global universities, high international population, CA's rule against covenants not-to-compete, etc. But those aren't strictly unique to SF. The reason it surpassed all of the other possible cities is that once the Bay Area became a tech hub path dependency took over.

Back to the NBA. LA has really good fundamentals for sports. It is one of the US's two mega-metropolis. It is a global entertainment and media capital. No matter what clubs in places like SA or Milwaukee do they never could have become the entrenched power the Lakers did because the fundamentals weren't there.

But while those fundamentals are in play for all sports they haven't led to LA's stranglehold over other sports. I'm solidly middle aged and in my lifetime UCLA/USC haven't really been significant basketball power for any sustained stretch. USC football did have a great run under Carroll but it wasn't at the level of Bama and they've drifted back into the pack. At the pro level you don't see it in any sport outside of hoops.

NYC has similar strengths to LA and is the historic capital of baseball. At a slightly lower level are the major metropolitan areas in TX, Chicagoland, SF and Atlanta.

Why haven't those place really taken off as a possible NBA capital? A lot of it is the franchises never really took advantage of it. Atlanta hasn't come close. Dallas and Houston have built title winners but they never came close to a run like Bird's Celtics or the 00s Spurs. The Bulls had an opportunity to make the leap but fumbled the ball out of the Jordan era about as bad as you can. They alienated all the key Bulls figures such that the franchise quickly drifted back.

This is why I'm fascinated how the Warriors are going to handle the transition out of the Curry era. SF's fundamentals are very strong. Will they take advantage of it in a way the bulls didn't?

[Doctor MJ]

Los Angeles is literally the epicenter of the modern NBA.

OT: This is true and it is a good example of the power and limits of fundamentals and path dependency.

I've lived in SF for almost 15 years. The Bay Area is the tech capital of the world. It became a tech hub because of fundamentals: global universities, high international population, CA's rule against covenants not-to-compete, etc. But those aren't strictly unique to SF. The reason it surpassed all of the other possible cities is that once the Bay Area became a tech hub path dependency took over.

Back to the NBA. LA has really good fundamentals for sports. It is one of the US's two mega-metropolis. It is a global entertainment and media capital. No matter what clubs in places like SA or Milwaukee do they never could have become the entrenched power the Lakers did because the fundamentals weren't there.

But while those fundamentals are in play for all sports they haven't led to LA's stranglehold over other sports. I'm solidly middle aged and in my lifetime UCLA/USC haven't really been significant basketball power for any sustained stretch. USC football did have a great run under Carroll but it wasn't at the level of Bama and they've drifted back into the pack. At the pro level you don't see it in any sport outside of hoops.

NYC has similar strengths to LA and is the historic capital of baseball. At a slightly lower level are the major metropolitan areas in TX, Chicagoland, SF and Atlanta.

Why haven't those place really taken off as a possible NBA capital? A lot of it is the franchises never really took advantage of it. Atlanta hasn't come close. Dallas and Houston have built title winners but they never came close to a run like Bird's Celtics or the 00s Spurs. The Bulls had an opportunity to make the leap but fumbled the ball out of the Jordan era about as bad as you can. They alienated all the key Bulls figures such that the franchise quickly drifted back.

This is why I'm fascinated how the Warriors are going to handle the transition out of the Curry era. SF's fundamentals are very strong. Will they take advantage of it in a way the bulls didn't?

Good thoughts, and I love that you're bringing Silicon Valley's history into this. In tech I'd say:

1. Military & aerospace really started becoming a big deal in California in the early 20th century, and at the time there were 2 dominant STEM colleges: Stanford in the North, and Caltech in the South. The two schools were among the Original Guggenheim Schools of Aeronautics along with NYU, Michigan, MIT, Washington & Georgia Tech - with the exception of the failed program of NYU (which was also the first program and got the most money), the other 6 schools became dominant forces in STEM globally in the decades to come.

2. Worth noting that in both California cases the schools (Stanford & Caltech) has set out to achieve something like this at a time when most colleges were focused on more traditional liberal arts. However, I'd say there was a level of aggression to Stanford's expansion that just wasn't in Caltech. In the Southern California, USC was the big private liberal arts school and Caltech just occupied that STEM niche. In the North by contrast, Stanford came to be the dominant private school close to across the board.

3. The aggression of Stanford carried forward in the creation of the Stanford Industrial Park and fostering of entrepreneurship initially on the back of supporting the miliary. Stanford University really had a vision for making Santa Clara Valley a center of innovation back well before the transistor was invented and "Silicon" became associated with the area.

Anywho, I find this stuff to be interesting and welcome others thoughts/questions/corrections.

Back over to LA becoming the center of basketball, I'd would say the order of events is essentially:

1. UCLA becomes the dominant college program.
2. Magic Johnson becomes a Laker.
3. Magic begins hosting his "Midsummer Night's Magic" event at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion really establishing Los Angeles as the place where pros would play against each other in the summer, usurping the prior dominance of New York City.
4. More and more guys choose to live in LA in the off-season, which is when a lot of the agent and other meetings tended to happen, and what LA was already known for - schmoozing, etc.

Additionally while this has happened, California became the dominant origin point for modern NBA players - also usurping New York on that front.

Okay, to the questions brought up:

First, I like that you push back against me giving too much credit for location. Certainly what UCLA did in the Wooden years is a level of dominance way beyond what we'd expect based on geographic advantage.

Why haven't USC & UCLA been dominant programs at all times since? I'd say a combination of a) lacking iconic coaches who can drive outlier recruiting and b) cost of living issues for assistant coaches. For the latter, this particularly affects UCLA because they are a public school.

No rush to LA for other sports, why not? Great question. To me the biggest thing here is just that baseball, American football & hockey just aren't sports that lend themselves to urban pick-up games the way basketball does, and this makes it less likely that a 'Mecca' emerges.

[Sign5]

I'd go with West or Riley.

[atlantabbq99]

Pat Riley.....

College
Player
Coach
GM

[Special_Puppy]

Suprised nobody has mentioned Bird. MVP, coach of the year, and executive of the year

[Cavsfansince84]

Suprised nobody has mentioned Bird. MVP, coach of the year, and executive of the year

I think Bird has a few mentions in this thread.