How the 2007-08 Jazz influenced Steve Kerr’s Warriors

Here’s one rarely discussed reason why the Warriors and the Cavaliers are in such a distant echelon by themselves: between them, the two teams contain the DNA of virtually every other modern dynastic team. Steve Kerr both three-peated with Phil Jackson and then ground out two more championships with Tim Duncan, Gregg Popovich and the defense-first Spurs. Tyronn Lue started his NBA career as part of another Jackson dynasty. Cleveland has not one but two assistant coaches — James Posey and Mike Longabardi — who won the 2008 championship with the Celtics. LeBron James and best bud James Jones made it to the Finals for four straight years before they jumped over to Cleveland and started on this current three-year streak.

If you look at the 20 Finals series from 1995-2014, before the Warriors and Cavaliers first collided, somebody who was present at this year’s Finals was present at 17 of those series, including the champions in 11 of those years.

Between one of the two locker rooms, virtually the entire modern history of the Finals can be recalled, from first-hand experience. This is all before, of course, every key figure between the Warriors and Cavaliers got their own extensive Finals experience, if they didn’t have it already, in 2015 and 2016.

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So how bizarre, then, that one of the only historical teams that both the Warriors and Cavaliers share DNA with wasn’t even an NBA Finalist. Wasn’t even a Conference Finalist. This team is the only one of the 21st century’s 10 best offenses that didn’t have a No. 1 overall pick or surefire Hall of Famer on it.

The 2007-08 Jazz. Chances are you’d remember them, if you remember them at all, for the annoying over-efforts of their many players who tended to ricochet around the court with their elbows out: Carlos Boozer, Matt Harpring, Andrei Kirilenko, 22-year-old Paul Millsap. Let them finally be remembered as they should be remembered: as offensive innovators whose influence can still be tangibly felt today.

In some ways the NBA in 2007-08 was not that long ago — there are so many familiar faces. But when it comes to constructing lineups, 2007-08 is definitely a generation or two in the past since the center was still the most important position and a five-wing lineup was totally unthinkable. This is the very same year that Kerr himself, as the short-lived general manager of the Suns, gunked up Mike D’Antoni’s free-flowing offense by trading for Shaquille O’Neal.

In this context, it’s easy to see who the most important player on the 2007-08 Jazz was, tactically speaking, Mehmet Okur. At 6-foot-11, Okur played both passable low-post defense against his lumbering opposing 5 and then sunk more than a 3-pointer per game, frequently putting that other big man on skates as they had to venture tentatively out of the paint.

Back in 2007-08, this was a completely innovative offensive weapon. That year, Okur put together just the 20th player-season ever when a player 6-foot-11 or taller sunk at least one 3-point basket a game. 10 different players did that this regular season alone!

With Okur out on the perimeter — and with Boozer frequently out around the free throw line for his patented two-second jumper — that left a ton of interior space for borderline shooters but brilliant movers and cutters like Kirilenko, Ronnie Brewer and Deron Williams to pile up high-percentage dunks and layups.

The end result is an offense that does look like a beta version of this year’s Warriors: guards who have the freedom to push the pace with creativity, a total team attack that’s spring-loaded to punish a defense’s half-second hesitation.

Before joining the Warriors, Kerr had already worked with the minds behind his other three main offensive influences: Mike D’Antoni, Gregg Popovich and Phil Jackson. From the start of his coaching tenure in Oakland, though, he wanted somebody who knew Utah’s system of screening and cutting from the inside. The Jazz back-up center in 2007-08, Jarron Collins, has been with Kerr for all of his three seasons with the Warriors, apparently literally quoting Sloan in team meetings along the way.

Cleveland’s connection to the 2007-08 Jazz is admittedly more tenuous. However, Kyle Korver and Deron Williams were functional rotation players for the Cavaliers all through the playoffs — and the same can’t be said about all of Cleveland’s recent veteran pickups, like Mike Dunleavy, Larry Sanders, Mo Williams, Brendan Haywood or Shawn Marion. For Williams especially, it looked like a certain deep bank of muscle memory was re-activated when paired with Channing Frye, who is an Okur-like player if there ever was one.

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Bob Myers, Jerry West and Kerr did not invent their world-beating offensive machine in a blind bolt of inspiration. Today’s Warriors are the end result of combined decades of observation, learning and lifting from the most valuable sources, no matter how unsexy they may be.