Steve Kerr won five championships in a 15 year NBA career and he holds the all-time record for career regular season three point field goal percentage (.454). Now his job is to try to evaluate talent and put together the right mix of players to help the Suns win the franchise's first NBA title:
Friedman: "A lot of times when people talk about athletic ability they limit it to two very specific things: being able to jump really high and being able to run really fast. I think that leads to the misconception that someone like Steve Nash or, previously, Larry Bird, is not that athletic. As a former player and someone who is now in management, how do you look at this question of defining what constitutes athletic ability?"
Steve Kerr: "Being a slow white guy who couldn’t jump, I prefer to look at other attributes that constitute athleticism (Kerr chuckles before turning serious). I think that when you look at Nash in particular, balance is such a huge part of his game. Hand-eye coordination and balance may be things that the average person does not associate with athleticism but you can see that there are guys who can really run and jump who can’t make a shot from three feet away; are they more athletic than a guy who is slower and can’t jump but can make shots and do all kinds of things on the floor with his vision and his balance? I don’t know. It’s a word that is open for interpretation, I think."
Friedman: "Would you agree that it is probably too narrowly defined?"
Kerr: "Yeah."
Friedman: "It is defined by very obvious, dramatic things that anybody can see—'Oh, that’s athletic'—but to actually be functional as an athlete and to be able to perform as an athlete you have to have these other skill sets that are harder to measure or harder to appreciate."
Kerr: "I would agree with that. Having played in the league for 15 years, I came across an awful lot of guys who could jump out of the gym or run like the wind and yet they didn’t make the team because it didn’t translate. The so-called athleticism has to translate into whatever sport the player is playing. It translates through other mediums, like we talked about, through balance and through knowledge and through an understanding of how to play. People can be athletic without being good basketball players."
Friedman: "But can you be a good basketball player without being a good athlete? That’s almost the core of the question that I am asking, because I don’t buy the idea that Nash is not a good athlete."
Kerr: "No, if you’re in the NBA, you’re a good athlete. Everybody in the NBA is a great athlete."
Friedman: "Even the supposedly non-athletic guys."
Kerr: "Yeah. Trust me, I was always known as one of the least athletic players in the NBA."
Friedman: "Which I’ve always felt is a bit of a misnomer--and not just with you, but in general. There is a range of athletic abilities represented in the NBA but everybody who is there is a good athlete."
Kerr: "Yeah and there are different forms of it. Hand-eye coordination is a huge part of it."
Friedman: "I want to ask you about a specific aspect of that, which is the word in general: 'hands.' People will say that 'player x'—for instance, Tim Duncan—has 'great hands.' Then there are other players, I won’t mention any names, who have 'bad hands.' I asked Coach D’Antoni about that. I’ll ask you the same thing that I asked him: have you ever seen anyone, either as a player or a talent evaluator, who did not have good hands and then at some point in the future he developed good hands?"
Kerr: "No. I think that it’s a lot like jumping."
Friedman: "It’s an athletic ability."
Kerr: "Yeah. If a guy can’t jump now then he probably won’t be able to jump later--unless he gets those platform shoes they advertise in the basketball magazines."
Friedman (laughing): "I’m not sure those work, either."
Kerr (laughing): "I’m not either. The one thing that guys can improve is shooting--with enough repetition. Terry Porter became a great three point shooter by the end of his career. Magic Johnson became a solid three point shooter."
Friedman: "But even with that, wouldn’t you say that to become a truly great shooter a person must have some kind of athletic ability to be able to practice and develop that trait? I don’t think that you can just take anybody and make them a great shooter. You are talking about someone who is a great athlete and then he is practicing but he has a base of athletic ability to work with."
Kerr: "I guess I’m saying that some people are capable of getting better but they are already pretty good to start with. I think that Shaq can shoot 1000 free throws a day and I just don’t think that it is wired in his body to athletically put the ball through the hoop from range. It is the hardest part of the game for him."
Friedman: "It is so perplexing to see that he can’t do that one thing as well as almost anyone who played high school basketball and can make 70 percent of his free throws."
Kerr: "It was the same thing with Wilt."
Friedman: "Right. It’s not just Shaq."
Kerr: "Tim Duncan has a hard time with it."
Friedman: "Duncan is almost more mystifying because he has good hands and he can make that bank shot. With him, you really think that it’s--I mean, I don’t know."
Kerr: "Mental."
Friedman: "Strange."
Kerr: "I don’t know. A friend of mine has what he calls the 'ball and stick' theory. He says that if you want to figure out if a guy is a good athlete, give him a ball and a stick--which to me is just another name for hand-eye coordination. If you put a golf club in his hands, can he hit the ball around decently? If you give him a baseball bat, can he go to the batting cage and hit the ball consistently? There are some people who can run and jump but 'ball and stick'—they are not great."
Friedman: "By that theory, just to kind of put a bow on everything, Nash is a very good athlete. Coach D’Antoni talked about that Nash can play just about any sport."
Kerr: "Any sport. He’d probably be a scratch golfer. He could probably bowl 300. He just sees it and he does it."
Friedman: "From that standpoint, even though it might surprise the average fan, he might be one of the better athletes in the league--on the 'ball and stick' theory."
Kerr: "If you go by 'ball and stick' theory, he might be the best athlete in the league. Those are generally the guys who can shoot and dribble and pass with either hand. He’s definitely in the upper echelon of the 'ball and stick' theory guys."