Barber: Steve Kerr’s 250th win with Warriors has a fitting victim

OAKLAND

Steve Kerr got his 250th win as an NBA coach on Saturday night. (Asterisk alert: He gets credit for the 39 victories the Warriors earned under interim coach Luke Walton in 2015-16.) Kerr beat his sensei, Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs, to get it. And as it turns out, Kerr secured his No. 250 in the same arena where Popovich got his No. 250 back in January of 2002. Right here in Oracle Arena.

“Is that called karma, or coincidence or whatever? I don’t know,” Popovich said before the game when apprised of the … let’s go with synchronicity. “Win or lose, we’re gonna shake hands anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

No, it didn’t particularly matter that Oracle has become the home base of the 250-win club. But it’s interesting to see how the circle has been completed, and to consider how the fortunes of these two franchises, and two old friends, continue to evolve.

Look back at Coach Pop’s 250th for a minute. The Spurs brought a 28-13 record into the game, the Warriors were mired at 14-27 and both of them were pretty much where everyone expected them to be. San Antonio featured young All-Star Tim Duncan, who led all scorers with 20 points that night; center David Robinson, who still had enough in the tank to block seven Warriors shots at the age of 36; and 19-year-old Tony Parker, a rookie just setting sail on a Hall of Fame career.

The Warriors? Their starting lineup that night consisted of Antawn Jamison, Larry Hughes, Danny Fortson, Jason Richardson and Adonal Foyle. A pretty typical Golden State lineup of the late 1990s or early 2000s. Their leading scorer that night was Bob Sura, who had 19 points off the bench.

Rarely has one team dominated another as the Spurs controlled the Warriors in that era. San Antonio won 16 consecutive games in the series from April of 1998 to March of 2002, and 31 of 35 if you extend the period to the end of the 2006-07 season. Then the Spurs put together another 16-game win streak against the Warriors from April of 2008 to January of 2013.

All in all, Popovich’s record against Golden State was 54-11 when Kerr was hired here in 2014. He owned the Warriors long before Joe Lacob did.

You could say things have changed. Including Golden State’s four-game sweep in last year’s Western Conference final, the Warriors have beaten San Antonio seven consecutive times, and 10 of the past 13.

It must feel odd to both Kerr and Popovich, those enduring friends and colleagues.

Kerr played under Popovich for four seasons, and he calls the older coach one of his three mentors, along with Lute Olson and Phil Jackson. Kerr leaned on Popovich for advice when took the Warriors job with no prior coaching experience. And he has borrowed many of Popovich’s principles, both in drawing up plays and interacting with players.

Popovich is infamously combative, nothing like the accommodating Kerr in terms of personality, but their mutual affection is evident. Popovich has even put another Kerr on the payroll. Steve’s son, Nick Kerr, helps the Spurs with film preparation.

“I just like seeing Pop,” Kerr said before Saturday’s game. “We’re good friends, and it’s always fun to see him before the game and chat a little bit. He calls my son a spy. He said my son could be working for Putin.”

“At practice yesterday, he did whatever we did to prepare for Golden State, whatever that might be. So I told the guys to make sure, before we left the gym, to get Nicky Kerr’s cellphone so he couldn’t text it to Steve,” Popovich countered. “He works for me, but I don’t trust him a lick. I know he’s calling his dad.”

After the Warriors had won 122-105, burying the visitors with a 26-point gap in the second and third quarters, Steve Kerr was deferential.

“Obviously, I played for Pop and I took a lot of things from him, but so has the whole league,” he said. “So when we play against Denver, I see a lot of the same stuff that Denver’s doing. So a lot of people have just taken from the Spurs, because they’ve been the best franchise in the league for 20 years, and they run beautiful stuff, and it’s a great way to play basketball.”

That’s all true. But this tide has shifted for the long term.

The Warriors hit some doldrums recently, but it didn’t shake the basic truth of the situation: They are the best team in the NBA by a solid margin. They’re defending champions, and it will take an unforeseen event, or a dramatic shift in the competitive alchemy, to prevent them from winning their third title in four seasons under Kerr.

The Spurs, meanwhile, are less and less of a true threat.

Two years ago, when the Warriors were setting an NBA record with 73 wins, the Spurs weren’t all that far behind at 67-15. Last year, San Antonio was back in the Western Conference final for the 10th time under Popovich and, who knows, may have put up a fight against the Warriors if star forward Kawhi Leonard hadn’t gotten hurt in Game 1.

And give the Spurs credit. They are 35-22, currently slotted at No. 3 in the West. That, as much as the five rings he has won, is testament to Popovich’s brilliance. How he has wrung 35 wins from this team when Leonard has played in just nine games is anyone’s guess.

You’d be a sucker to bet that the Spurs will collapse in the next few years.

But it’s hard to imagine them keeping pace with the Warriors, not with so many aging players. Power forward LaMarcus Aldridge, who has experienced a rebirth this season, will be 32 in July. Rudy Gay is 31. Danny Green will be 31 in June. Tony Parker will be 36 in May, Pau Gasol 38 in July, Manu Ginobili 41 in July. They might as well bring back David Robinson.

San Antonio gets credit for playing the Warriors close on Saturday with Leonard, Gay and Parker all missing the game with injuries. But that’s what happens to old teams.

Danny Fortson and Adonal Foyle, and many Warriors who followed in their wake, quivered at the sight of the Spurs, and with good reason. Popovich was their Kryptonite. But Kerr, with help from All-Stars like Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, has found the vaccine.

Asked after the contest what it means to reach 250 wins faster than any other coach in any of the major North American sports, Kerr said, “It just means that I inherited a hell of a team with an amazing, talented group of players.”

What did Popovich think? “I don’t care, and I can tell he doesn’t care either,” he said.

Typical Pop. Typical Kerr. And typical Warriors-Spurs for the foreseeable future.

You can reach columnist Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.