If there is an element of magic to the Golden State Warriors’ run of excellence — and every true believer accepts that such an element exists — it can be seen in the brief exchange between head coach Steve Kerr and Andre Iguodala had in every game in the 2014-15 season, when the Warriors shocked the world.
Each time Iguodala trotted past Kerr to check into the game, the coach would tell his sixth man, “Andre, find the flow.”
Iguodala, who announced his retirement Friday, always found the flow.
What did that mean, “Find the flow”? I asked Iguodala this year.
“I think what you see if you follow this whole time, you know how chaotic we can be,” Iguodala said. “And there’s a positive and a negative to our chaos. I think what he wanted me to do when I got in was, if we got into the wrong chaos, he wanted me to find the flow, meaning let the game happen naturally.”
Iguodala finding the flow has a vital element in creating the beauty and positive chaos of the Warriors. When the big story is written, this much will be clear: Kerr took Iguodala to a higher level of basketball, and Iguodala took Kerr to a higher level, and the rest of us sat back and enjoyed the flow.
It almost didn’t happen. It seems all kumbaya now, looking back, how Iguodala gracefully accepted a bench role in Kerr’s first season with the Warriors, and how that helped steady and balance the team for a decade. It was not that simple. It was a huge risk, for both Kerr and Iguodala, and an emotional roller-coaster.
The fact that it did happen is a tribute to both the coach and the player, and to their Einstein-meets-Beethoven level of creative connection.
About a week into that 2014 training camp in Oakland, Kerr pulled Iguodala to the side after a practice and proposed a plan: Iguodala in a new role, sixth man. Which was pure crazy. Iguodala was 29 years old, he had started every game of his 10-year career, and he was the second-best player on the team, with Klay Thompson and Draymond Green having not yet fully emerged.
Iguodala understood the logic. For the Warriors to get the most out of Harrison Barnes’ considerable talent, Barnes had to play with the starting group. Iguodala coming off the bench could ease the starters into a new flow, and then he could anchor the second unit.
Still, Iguodala had serious misgivings. He had come to the Warriors the previous season because he wanted to play for then-head coach Mark Jackson, and he wanted to experience the Warriors’ brand of fun basketball as a starter. Then, after Iguodala’s first Warriors’ season, the team fired Jackson and hired Kerr, whose first big move was to bench Iguodala.
Iguodala told me he huddled with his agent more than once that preseason and broached the idea of demanding a trade. His agent encouraged Iguodala to be patient, give it a try.
He did, and the Warriors were astonishingly good, from the very start. The other players knew Iguodala was struggling emotionally and technically with his new role. They knew what he had given up, but they saw that the idea was working.
“For Andre to embrace the idea of coming off the bench, an idea being put to him by a guy who had never coached, the fact that Andre accepted that was a huge part of that season and that story,” former general manager Bob Myers told me. “It allowed the other guys to get on board, too. It sent a message, Andre saying, ‘I’m going to listen to this guy. I’m going to give him a fair chance, to my own detriment.’ ”
Beyond the symbolism, Iguodala made his new role work. Traditionally, the sixth man is supposed to supply instant scoring. Iguodala was asked to suppress his scoring ability and instinct to become the flow facilitator, to get shots for his teammates.
He struggled with his new role all season, and there were moments of intense frustration and even anger. But he stayed with it.
He was such a steadying, controlling influence on the team that Kerr dubbed him the Babysitter.
“I don’t see that as a compliment, and it used to annoy me,” Iguodala told me. “What do you get for being a babysitter? You get minimum wage. You get two bucks an hour. I didn’t really embrace (that title). I heard it, and would just laugh it off. But sometimes I would say, ‘Why don’t you try babysitting me? Why don’t you give me an easy layup from time to time? Why don’t you give me a wide-open shot from time to time?’ So I had a little bit of fun with it.”
Toward the end of his career, Iguodala continued to contribute to the winning. In the 2021-22 championship season, he was often injured and rarely played, but his mentorship and leadership behind the scenes were valued. He gave himself the role of Stephen Curry’s guardian angel, making sure the younger players were aware of the rare opportunity they had in playing alongside an all-time superstar.
Whether Iguodala ever makes the Hall of Fame, he already has been inducted into his teammates’ Hall of Fame. First ballot, unanimous.
And when the Warriors’ statue garden takes shape outside the arena the players built, Andre Iguodala will be there in marble, in the act of ripping off his sweats, his eyes sweeping the court, searching for the flow.
Reach Scott Ostler: sostler@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @scottostler
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