Is Steve Kerr Hall of Fame Worthy? Yes. As a Coach

Steve Kerr is as unlikely to make the Hall of Fame as a player as he is likely to make it as a coach. Despite winning five NBA titles on the court, Kerr was a role player who did not have a Hall of Fame career. As a coach, Kerr has won four titles and has been voted one of the 15 best NBA coaches of all time.  

Is Steve Kerr a Hall of Fame Player? 

Steve Kerr was a nice NBA role player who has no real case to be inducted into the Hall of Fame as a player. 

You can see his career NBA statistics below. 

Games	Points	Assists	Rebounds	T/O	Steals
910	6.0	1.8	1.2	.6	.5

While I refuse to extensively research the question, I strongly doubt there are any Hall of Fame players inducted for their NBA careers who averaged six points per game. 

Even Dennis Rodman averaged more than seven points per game. And Rodman was a defensive specialist who was also one of the greatest rebounders to ever play the game.

Steve Kerr was not noted for being a defensive specialist. Quite the contrary – he was known for being a shooter. And he was a great one. 

Shooting

Kerr led the NBA twice in his career in 3-point percentage. He was over 50% in both of those seasons. 

Kerr also leads the NBA in career 3-point percentage. His incredible long-distance shooting could be one reason some people might think he belongs in the Hall.

But it is important to keep perspective on that shooting. Kerr averaged less than 2 three-point shots per game for his career. That is shots attempted – not shots made. 

His highest single season of 3-point shot attempts was under 3 per game. 

Yes, Steve Kerr was a great long-distance shooter. But he did not shoot that much. 

Those attempts were not the difference between wins and losses for his teams on a night-in and night-out basis. 

Instead, Kerr was a role player. There is nothing wrong with that. I’d be thrilled to be so good at basketball that I could have a career as an NBA role player. 

But it is not the Hall of Useful or the Hall of Okay. It is the Hall of Fame and it is filled with star players. Steve Kerr was not that. 

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Winning

The other argument some may use to bolster a claim that Steve Kerr is a Hall of Fame player is that he was a winner. 

Steve Kerr was a member of five NBA championship teams, it is true. But re-look at his stats from above. 

He was not some essential piece that drove those teams to titles.

Kerr was a nice backup who provided some good three point shooting off the bench. He did not start a single regular season or playoff game for any of his five title teams.

Kerr’s best individual statistical seasons were for the Bulls. He averaged 8 points per game for those teams. 

Steve Kerr was simply not one of the essential players on his championship teams. The Bulls not only had Micheal Jordan, they also had Scottie “No Tippin’” Pippen and Dennis “The Worm” Rodman. 

The Spurs teams where Kerr won his 4th and 5th titles featured The Big Fundamental Tim Duncan and The Admiral David Robinson. 

Kerr averaged only 3-4 points per game for those teams. 

I am a fan of winning. I like players who contribute to winning. Steve Kerr was a useful, winning player and I respect him for it. 

But he was not one of the key pieces of any of those title-winning teams. 

It may be a more valuable skill to play 20  minutes and score 8 points per game for a championship team than it is to score 17 points for a last-place squad. 

But, neither of those players deserves a place in the basketball Hall of Fame. Players like Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, Robinson and Duncan do. 

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Player Comparison

To complete my argument that Steve Kerr was not a Hall of Fame player, I am comparing him to several other players below using advanced statistics.

PER was one of the first advanced stats. It tries to measure all that a player does on the court. 

Win Shares and Box Plus/Minus are similar in that they try to add up all  of a player’s contributions to his team in one number.

Player	PER	Win Shares	Box Plus/Minus
Mark Price	19.6	71.1	3.7
John Stockton	21.8	207.7	6.8
Steve Kerr	13.1	47.2	.8
Dana Barros	16.4	49.6	1.7

Now let’s talk about the players in the table. 

John Stockton  is one of the greatest players in NBA history. He is the all-time leader in assists and steals.

He is a slam-dunk Hall of Fame player who was enshrined in 2009. 

Mark Price is not in the Hall of Fame. I argued in this post, that he probably shouldn’t and won’t get in. 

Price was a nice player. He had a good run for the Cavs against Jordan’s Bulls. But they came up short in those contests, and Price does not have the career numbers that usually qualify a player for the Hall of Fame.

I chose Dana Barros because I was looking for someone more like Kerr. Stockton and Price are undersized, white guards but both were more pure, traditional point guards. 

At 6’3” Kerr was a bit taller, while still small for the NBA, but he was more of a pure shooter. Enter Dana Barros.

I loved Dana Barros as a kid growing up in the Boston area. In this post, I argued he is the second best player from BC in NBA history. 

He was, like Kerr, a small guard who was more a shooter than a point guard. Barros is 21st in career 3-point percentage. 

Unlike Kerr, Dana Barros averaged 20 points per game in one season. He also averaged close to 11 points per game for his career. 

No one argues Dana Barros should be in the Hall of Fame. Many of you probably don’t know who he is. 

I loved him because I am from the Boston area and Barros is too. But until I wrote this post, I never spent even one second thinking about his Hall of Fame chances. 

Dana Barros is clearly not a Hall of Fame player. But Barros has considerably better career numbers than Steve Kerr. 

When compared to Hall of Fame players, Steve Kerr clearly comes up short. 

When compared to borderline Hall of Fame players, Kerr still comes up short.

When compared to non-Hall of Fame caliber players, Kerr still comes up short. 

Steve Kerr is clearly not a Hall of Fame player. 

Was Steve Kerr Ever an All Star? 

No, Steve Kerr was never an All Star as an NBA player. 

Kerr’s best statistical season was ‘93-’94 when he averaged 8.6 points and 2.6 assists per game.

Those are not All Star game numbers in any season – unless you are an outlier defender like Dennis Rodman.

In 1994, the Eastern Conference had a fairly weak All Star roster. Kerr’s teammate B.J. Armstrong was one of the back court starters along with Kenny Anderson.

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Armstrong is no Hall of Famer himself, but he averaged 15 points and 4 assists per game that season. 

Anderson was a dominant high school and college player who disappointed a bit in the pros.  But even he averaged 19 points per game that season.

Steve Kerr was a nice role player, but never got close to All Star consideration. 

Is Steve Kerr a Hall of Fame Coach? 

Steve Kerr is extremely likely to make the Hall of Fame as a coach. Kerr has two very important things going for him in terms of making the Hall of Fame as a coach.

Winning

The first factor working in Kerr’s favor is winning. When it comes to NBA coaches, having led a team to a series of titles almost always leads to being chosen for the Hall of Fame.

Kerr, of course, has led the Warriors dynasty to 4 NBA titles in his  eight-year NBA head coaching career. He also led them to another Finals appearance where they lost to LeBron’s Cavs.

The voters love winning. I don’t blame them – I like winning too. 

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In truth it can be hard to say with supporting players like Horace Grant, and with coaches like Bill Fitch, how much they are responsible for championship teams. 

In the cases of players, voters can look at career stats to make the decision. 

But outside wins and losses coaches don’t have stats. So the voters are left only with the winning. And it is hard to vote against a winner. 

When you look at the list of coaches in the Hall of Fame, there are a variety of different types of coaches. 

Many of them are college coaches, so we can ignore them.  Of the NBA coaches, some had long careers where they strung together tons of victories like Rick Adelman.

Others, like Rudy Tomjanovich, are most notable for winning multiple titles with a great team – in Rudy T’s case the Rockets led by Hakeem.

Steve Kerr already has better accomplishments as a coach in terms of winning titles than Rudy T. That puts him in a good spot for making the Hall of Fame. 

But he also has the respect of other coaches. 

Respect

The second factor favoring Steve Kerr’s enshrinement in the Hall of Fame as a coach is the respect he has from other coaches. 

As part of its 75th anniversary celebration, the NBA commissioned the selection of the best coaches in league history. 

The top 15 NBA coaches of all time were “selected by a panel of 43 current and former NBA head coaches in collaboration with the National Basketball Coaches Association”. 

They chose Steve Kerr as one of the 15 best NBA coaches of all time. That kind of respect is extremely likely to lead to Kerr being chosen for the Hall of Fame. 

All the retired coaches on the list are in the Hall of Fame. Of the active coaches, Gregg Popovich is a certainty. 

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That leaves Erik Spoelstra, who has two fewer titles than Kerr in more seasons, and Doc Rivers, who has three fewer titles in many more years. 

Of the three, I feel most confident in Kerr making it. To be selected to be on this list in so few years coaching is a sign of the respect Kerr has.

While the Hall of Fame voters are not the same group picking this list, they are cut from the cloth. 

Steve Kerr is as likely to make the Hall of Fame as a coach as he is unlikely to make it as a player. 

Is Steve Kerr The Greatest Coach of All Time? 

Anointing Steve Kerr as the greatest coach of all time seems premature.

Kerr is in his 9th year of coaching, and all of them have been with one talent-laden franchise led by the same superstar player in Steph Curry.

The NBA is not the NFL where coaches can steal victories with masterful game plans. Coaches matter, but it’s a player’s league in the NBA. 

The players Steve Kerr has been blessed enough to coach on the Golden State Warriors have been pretty great. 

It is not fair to anoint him the best coach of all time until he succeeds with multiple groups of players.

If Steve Kerr takes lesser groups of players to championships or takes several other groups of great players to titles, then we can talk.

Until then, it’s fair to say that Steve Kerr is a really good, and possibly an all-time great, coach. But it is almost certainly too soon to say he is THE greatest of all time. 

Phil Jackson and Red Auerbach have accomplished much more in terms of victories, while Gregg Popovich and others would get the nod in terms of being innovative, creative, modern NBA thinkers. 

Maybe someday Steve Kerr might join that group. But today is not that day – yet. 

Summary: Steve Kerr Hall of Fame

As a coach, Steve Kerr is almost certain to make the Hall of Fame due to leading his teams to four NBA titles. His peers voted him as one of the 15 best NBA coaches of all time. As a player, Kerr was a winner but was far from a Hall of Fame player.