### [Source Article by The Athletic’s Anthony Slater – “How the Warriors shook up their player development department”](https://theathletic.com/4660155/2023/07/06/warriors-player-development-department/)
### This Change was Planned by Mike Dunleavy Jr prior to Bob Myers’ & Jama Mahalela’s Departures:
> They grabbed Jama Mahlalela from Toronto (2021). All three had player development backgrounds. **Mahlalela was tasked with organizing the evolving program. But he jumped to the front of the bench before this previous season, leading to more involvement in creating rotations, scouting and strategizing on a game-by-game basis. That generated some time management conflict, pulling Mahlalela in several directions**. He left for a job on the front of the Raptors bench this summer — leaving a vacancy on the front of Kerr’s bench that is still to be determined — but the **player development shift was already decided on before the departure.**
> The G League season ended in late March. That freed up Seth Cooper, then the Santa Cruz head coach, to shift his focus to the main Warriors team. **Mike Dunleavy Jr. approached Cooper during the playoffs.** Dunleavy was still second-in-command behind Bob Myers, but his influence had already grown substantially and his bigger picture views mirrored that of his soon-to-be front office.
### Santa Cruz Warriors (now ex-)HC Seth Cooper & Santa Cruz Warriors GM David Fatoki Co-leading Development here on out:
> **Dunleavy, Nick U’Ren and Kent Lacob had put in place a player development program over the previous few seasons,** making specific coaching hires and essentially creating a new leg of the organization meant to better cultivate all the high-value draft picks they were welcoming.
> Dunleavy approached Cooper. The structure was eventually decided. **Cooper would be the co-leader, representing the coaching perspective. David Fatoki, the Santa Cruz general manager, would be the other co-leader, representing the front office. They’re installing it this summer.** “It just feels like we’re kind of taking what we built the last couple years and trying to make it better,” Steve Kerr said.
### Seth Cooper leaving Santa Cruz for San Francisco. Glimpse of Seth Cooper’s Development approach:
**TLDR Notes**:
* Seth Cooper no longer Santa Cruz Warriors HC
* Not involved in night-to-night strategy. Still plans to attend some to relay the points of emphasis to the young guys
* Involved in the long-term approach of development
* Charge of pracitce, drills, scrimmages, and pregame workouts for the younger guys
* Plans for Santa Cruz team to be brought up to SF for more live reps for the fringe rotation/occassional DNP guys more often
* Plan to implements Seth Cooper’s practice from Santa Cruz of not assigning particular assistant coaches to particular players and focusing on working in larger groups or rotating assistant coaches for players occasionally (Doesn’t apply to vets like Steph, Klay, Dray, Loon, Wiggs, GP2, CP3, etc)
**Seth Cooper quote**:
> “As long as we’re meeting and we’re all preaching the same things and we all know the big rocks that we want to move,” Cooper said. “Because, you know, I might look at something specific on spacing and, you know, a different coach might see something on his pick-and-roll reads. And I think for the players to hear as many really good ideas from different people as possible, that’s kind of the goal.”
**Steve Kerr a fan of Seth Cooper’s Drill Work**:
>Kerr emphasized Cooper’s drill work a few times as something he might even implement during the rare times that the veterans are also involved in a heavy workload practice. He likes some of what he has seen.
>“**The hardest thing to coach is decision making**,” Kerr said. “You know, we call it point-five basketball. Everyone knows that phrase. But it really is a decision making sport and you’re you’re constantly tasked with making a quick decision. **Dribble, pass, shoot or defensively rotate, box out. All these things have to be done quickly. And if you’re a half-count late, the possession is destroyed at either end. That’s the focus — drill work that can really accentuate players ability to make decisions quickly**.”
### David Fatoki, the rep for the FO for development, will help the Voices/agendas of various parties be Heard and Addressed between all parties:
**TLDR Notes**:
* Agents, Players, FO members (scouts, execs, owner, etc) with opinions on certain players Coaches, Friends, & Family all have thoughts and opinions on playtime, role, etc. Fatoki will be their rep in the coaching meetings
* Will still be the Santa Cruz Warriors GM while also being involved with Golden State
* Mainly organizing & overseeing player development from the FO perspective. Essentially an extension of Mike Dunleavy Jr’s & Kirk Lacob’s perspectives
**David Fatoki Quote**:
> “That was the biggest thing, making sure we have the key stakeholders in one place, having someone from both sides manage this in a more full-time role,” Fatoki said. “Myself rolling up to Mike and rolling up to Kirk, the front office’s plans are always in whatever we’re doing player development wise.”
### Some Steve Kerr Quotes:
**Steve Kerr on Player Development (in general):**
> Kerr: “From the outside looking in, people view player development and they want immediate results. But to expect immediate results with this team doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. **When you draft 19-year-olds and you say, ‘Hey, this is going to take some time.’ It’s easy to say, but then reality hits and everybody’s saying, ‘Well, why aren’t you developing those guys?’ Well, I would argue that we are developing. We just happen to have a championship team that has a lot of vets** playing in front of these guys. So a lot of the development is just happening behind the scenes. And we feel good about that development. But it just takes time.
**Steve Kerr on Jonathan Kuminga (and also Moses Moody)**:
> Kerr: “**The last thing people remember was him not playing much against Sacramento and the Lakers. So we do have to deal with the narrative, first of all. But we’re much more concerned with the actual development**, the welfare of the players and how they’re how they’re doing, how they’re handling things. I think **both Moses and JK have really come a long way in two years. So it’s just trying to reconcile modern expectations with the amount of media attention and daily scrutiny of every player’s production with what’s actually realistic, in terms of how much playing time guys are going to get on a team like ours.** I think that’s pretty difficult, frankly, difficult on our players mainly. They’re seeing their peers play a lot more. Then our fans, understandably, they want to see young guys play so they can get the picture of the team clearly. It’s all kind of part of it.
**Steve Kerr Approves of the Collective FO-Coaching Staff Alignment**:
> Kerr: “Every organization now is so big. **Since I arrived in 2014, I want to say, if you combined front office and coaching staff — basically all of basketball operations — I’d guess we tripled in size. So you have a lot of mouths to feed.** There are a lot of opinions, a lot of thoughts, more scrutiny, more pressure. So I think part of being a good organization is constantly aligning and working to align. It’s not enough to just say, ‘Hey, we’re aligned.’ Then have a conversation once in a while. **You have to actively pursue alignment. That’s what we’re doing. Literally running player development with a combination of Fatoki and Cooper. One coach and one executive. They’re putting their minds together every single day.** And that allows the flow of conversation and information to be really free at all levels of the organization. It allows for much **easier conversations as to why somebody is playing or why somebody else isn’t playing, what we’re looking at as a coaching staff or what the front office is looking at roster wise**. So I really like it as a format and a natural extension of what we’ve built the last couple years.
by NokCha_
