24 August 2023 , 16:20
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Back in 2014, before the Golden State Warriors became the defining team of a generation, Jarron Collins was approached by Steve Kerr and Bob Myers. Collins, who played 10 seasons in the NBA before his 2011 retirement, was invited to join the staff and help lead a team ready to leap into the stratosphere. In his own words, Collins "thanks God" he said yes.
In July 2014, Collins officially joined Kerr’s staff as a player development coach and the Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2015 NBA Finals. He was promoted to assistant coach ahead of the 2015-16 season, assisting as Golden State tallied the greatest single-season record in league history. Collins went on to win two more championships with Kerr and co. before he left to join the New Orleans Pelicans in 2021.
Collins was in London to lead a basketball clinic for boys and girls who aspire to become the UK’s very own Steph Curry, Klay Thompson or Draymond Green, perhaps starring in the British Basketball League. He eloquently advised on technique and how sport can bind communities together, but the 44-year-old hammered hope one point in particular: practice makes perfect at each and every level. Even at the top. Even for the Curry.
“What I love about Steph is that he is a phenomenal basketball player, but he's an even better person and human being,” Collins told Mirror Sport. “It was an honour to work with him. Obviously, my area of focus was to help him become a better defender, which he did, but he's someone who's so committed and so diligent about his work. He leads the organisation through who he is as a human being, but also through his work ethic.
“Fans question how he makes these shots - he actually practices it all. The deep threes, one-legged off-balance shots? He practices the creative finishing around the basket.
“When I’m doing something like this at a clinic here in London, and I talk to the young kids about ‘you get out what you put in, you got to work on it’ - that's what Steph has done to his game and it’s what these young basketball players have to do with their game. Do not take his greatness for granted, because he is a generational talent and he does things that are just so mind blowing. He’s a really special player.”
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Steph Curry and Draymond Green are two pillars of the Golden State Warriors dynasty (Getty Images)As he alluded to, Collins is a defensive specialist. This means, for all his love and respect for Curry, he naturally gravitates to the Draymond Greens of the world. Defence wins championships, and Collins explained how Green set the tone and inspired his team on that end of the floor to four titles during his ongoing Hall of Fame career.
“Draymond has always been a leader who plays with an intensity and savviness; he's able to diagnose other players’ tendencies and other playsets to just completely blow them up, so I learned a lot working with Draymond,” Collins said. “There's another player there during that dynasty who is a phenomenal defender, Andre Iguodala. Working alongside those two guys, it starts with their attitude.
“They're highly competitive, almost intimidating, but they want to get inside their opposition's head. It’s to lead from the defensive end. When you’re defending, it starts with your mental approach and mindset because it’s absout multiple efforts. There are guys who, quite frankly, don't want to make multiple efforts on the defensive end.”
Collins ensured the best offensive players in the Bay Area - Curry and Thompson in particular - pulled their weight defensively. Before his string of long-term injuries, Thompson was an elite wing defender while Curry, as mentioned earlier, put in as much work defensively as he did shooting the ball into the hoop from inexplicable distances and angles.
Now, Collins has entered a new chapter with the Pelicans. Imparting wisdom on a young, developing team is a very different experience to coaching the Warriors, a superteam expected to sweep their way to the Finals on an annual basis. But how does it differ from a coaching perspective?
Jarron Collins led a hands-on coaching clinic for young boys and girls in east London (U.S. Embassy London)“At Golden State, we obviously had a tremendous amount of talent with players set to enter the Hall of Fame,” Collins added. “Those guys knew what they were doing in regards to basketball skills, rotations, X's and O's, their talent, and their basketball IQ. The coaching part of it was unique; it was all about the dynamic personalities, and managing and meeting the personalities to make sure that we were all pulling in the same direction.
“With a younger team or a team that is developing, there's a lot more teaching involved because they have younger players, so their experience level as far as technique on closing out, hand positioning, defence - there’s just so much more teaching that goes on. But both are equally as fun. The goal is to win and be competitive. You can do that with a young team, and you can do that with a tremendously talented team, for sure.”
Jarron Collins was the special guest of the British Basketball League and U.S. Embassy London at a basketball clinic at NCC Hackney, which brought 100 young basketball players together from communities across London.