Nevius: Warriors' Zen-cool culture hard to duplicate

First it was the threes. You probably remember when the Warriors were regarded as a soft, long-ball launching gimmick.

An NBA championship and a Finals appearance later, it is raining treys. This season Cleveland shot more threes than Golden State. So did Houston, Boston and - wait for it - Brooklyn.

Then it was small ball. At crunch time head coach Steve Kerr goes with five tweeners - smaller, quicker, ball-handlers who spread the court and leave big defenders spinning.

Now variations on the “death lineup” are so common that a team’s seven-footer may never leave the bench with the game on the line. Two-time MVP Steve Nash only retired in 2015, but he’s seen the change.

“The value of the rim-protecting center has diminished,” says Nash, a team consultant. “The Warriors were one of the few teams to do that originally.”

Now the buzzword is “culture.” Everybody wants to emulate the Warriors’ close-knit, Zen-cool, communal culture.

Good luck with that.

For starters, it is a little hard to define. Professorial assistant coach Ron Adams, an NBA lifer, is a good choice to explain the Warrior ethos. Consider, when Kevin Durant arrived in Oakland he said, “Ron Adams is the only reason I came here.”

“Culture is getting motivated, like-minded, solid human beings who want to be here,” Adams says.

Something’s working. The Warriors added seven new players this year - over half the roster. And yet, they remain a happy, hustling group of winners.

Take 14-year veteran David West. He left more than $8 million on the table at Indiana to sign with San Antonio last year and the Warriors this season. Less money, more satisfaction.

“You want to be in an environment that makes sense,” West says. “I could see they are good people who treat people the right way.”

Want an example? West says he can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times the team hasn’t hosted a team dinner on the road. Warriors’ staff rent out an entire restaurant and invite everyone - including family if they are in town. It’s not mandatory. That would ruin the vibe. But nearly everyone attends.

And why don’t other teams do that? Adams smiles and rubs his thumb and index finger together - too expensive.

“It costs the organization a lot of money to do that,” says Nick U’Ren, a special assistant to Kerr. “But what would you pay to build team chemistry?”

And here is where we need to inject a tiny bit of concern. Sure the framework for the organization is in place. But it is pretty hard to ignore that the secret sauce is Kerr. Kerr has that outside-the-box, Bill Walsh-like approach that challenges conventional wisdom.

Take the time he asked longtime pal and assistant coach Bruce Fraser what he thought of playing music during practices.

“You’re nuts,” Fraser says he replied.

But Kerr had been up to Seattle to watch the Seahawks. Head coach Pete Carroll told him a little hip-hop kept the energy up.

So music was added. For a while Kerr was picking out the tunes, but someone who was spotted at a Paul Simon concert last year is probably not the musical demographic for a young, hip NBA baller.

U’Ren became team DJ and typically, the 30-year-old took it an extra step. On the road he features hometown artists - Kanye West for Chicago, Prince for Minneapolis and Hall and Oates for Philadelphia.

Wait. Hall and Oates?

“Every once in a while,” U’Ren shrugs. “We try to keep the eye-rolling to a minimum.”

You may remember U’Ren as the young video editor who had the temerity to speak up in the Finals two years ago and suggest that Kerr replace center Andrew Bogut with the smaller, quicker Andre Iguodala. The move was hailed as coaching genius when the Warriors won the title.

“And how many coaches would have listened to a young guy like that?” Fraser asks. “None. That’s the beauty of Steve Kerr. He gives everyone a big pot to grow in.”

Which brings us back to the current concern. I am sure fill-in coach Mike Brown is a terrific guy and a fine coach, but this is a team cast in Kerr’s wry, quirky, intellectual mold. With him on the disabled list with back problems, can the Warriors’ culture persist?

No one knows. But we can offer these vignettes from John Canzano, an Oregon columnist and amateur Warriors’ culture analyst.

Canzano says he watched Durant shoot before a game with a half-dozen ball-boys rebounding balls and passing them back. After about 15 minutes Durant took off his headphones, went to each kid, shook their hands and thanked them. They’ll only be telling that story for the rest of their lives.

And Canzano says, when the series ended he saw Steph Curry take the time to walk down the arena corridor and meet with each usher, expressing appreciation for their help.

So, rest of the NBA, problem solved. All you need to do is find a bright, unorthodox head coach, surround him with some of greatest players on planet Earth and give all of them free rein. Oh, and it helps if they are all terrific, thoughtful human beings.

Let us know how that works out.

You can reach C.W. Nevius at cwnevius@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter @cwnevius.