OAKLAND – It takes some serious star power to impress the Warriors. They are one of the most popular teams on the face of the planet in the middle of a historic run of success.
But when Andre Young – better known by his stage name Dr. Dre – and Jimmy Iovine walked through the door Tuesday morning, Steve Kerr said some of his players’ jaws dropped.
“KD is really excited,” Steve Kerr said. “Draymond looked at me and just nodded. Like ‘this is pretty cool…pretty cool.’”
Iovine and Dre met with the team for the Warriors annual ‘Business of Basketball’ meeting. Usually reserved for someone to explain the ins and outs of the salary cap, director of player programs Jonnie West came up big and brought Dre and Iovine in to meet the team.
“We always had those meetings. They can get kind of boring and redundant,” Green said, before grinning and adding, “but I’m excited about this one.”
The Warriors are at the top of the mountain, and you couldn’t blame them if they kept their heads down and went about their business without taking advice from anyone outside the organization. But Kerr says the team can take learn a lot from meeting with successful people in different industries.
“Even though the medium is different, it’s the same path,” Kerr said. “Same path to success. Creativity. Generating ideas, motivation. Putting all that stuff all on paper. Following a plan. Keeping your goal. Dealing with adversity. Same story in anybody’s successful path. But it’s a different realm, and that’s what makes it interesting.”
The Warriors boast some of the most talented individual basketball players to ever lace up their own signature shoes, but still find a way to play at a level that is greater than the sum of it’s parts. Draymond spoke about Dr. Dre similarly, saying that The Chronic is one of the top three albums ever created – but Dre’s real magic came from making those around him great.
“Him and Snoop still got stuff we rock to today,” Green said. “But his ability to make others great…that’s what’s special. He helped make Eminem great. That’s what’s special. You look at guys in our sport. And there’s a lot of guys who can get it themselves. There aren’t a lot of guys who can make others great. And that’s kinda when you can see the transcendent talent. When you can make everyone else around you better. And that’s what he did.
“Like I said, I think that’s more special than any music he’s ever made himself. You look at his resume, how many other people he’s made great. That’s what stands out more to me than anything.”
It will be interesting to hear what the players learned from Dre and Iovine, and how they’ll use those lessons in their own life.
But in the meantime…