Lainn Wilson ready to lead Santa Cruz Warriors after ‘surreal' NBA Summer League originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Attendance was estimated at just under 8,400 fans. The feeling more closely resembled a packed house at Chase Center, especially for the man leading the Warriors on the sidelines to open the California Classic.
After spending the last four seasons as the Warriors’ head video coordinator, Steve Kerr, Mike Dunleavy and others felt the best next move for Lainn Wilson was leading their G League affiliate in Santa Cruz. NBA Summer League served as the perfect slate of exhibitions for the first-time head coach, as was earning a comeback win against the Los Angeles Lakers in his first game. Warriors players doused Wilson with water in the locker room to celebrate the win, and he still was taking in all his emotions at the podium.
“Pretty surreal,” Wilson admitted. “It doesn’t really hit you until you’re out there. The crowd out there was much larger than I expected it to be. To collectively feel that energy in the building, there’s nothing more fun.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into it, but to me, this is why we play the games. This is why we compete. When you’re out there, there’s a lot of life and energy.”
His path is nothing like Kerr, Jason Kidd, Tyronn Lue, so on and so forth. The majority of NBA head coaches had professional playing careers. Not Wilson. The 33-year-old never even played past high school in Augusta, Ga.
Wilson had a dream that could have been torched by numerous road blocks and barriers. Instead, he has done everything in the coaching world the past 15 years that has led to patrolling the sidelines of Chase Center, UNLV’s campus for summer league and now Kaiser Permanente Arena in Santa Cruz.
The young coach on the rise began his ascension at the University of Georgia, where Wilson spent four seasons as a student manager for the men’s basketball team and then two more as a graduate assistant. Wilson then did all the dirty work, literally, for the Grand Rapids Drive, the former D League team of the Detroit Pistons. He has been a D League video intern and assistant coach in the NBA’s minor leagues, and was an assistant video coordinator for the Philadelphia 76ers before joining the Warriors ahead of their 2021-22 championship season.
Each role prepared him for the next. Roaming the sidelines as the main person in charge this summer gave Wilson a new appreciation, and has him ready to fill Nicholas Kerr’s shoes in Santa Cruz.
“At least for me, I’d say a lot,” Wilson said to NBC Sports Bay Area. “I basically got a little bit of a runway into running a team. It’s a lot of the logistics stuff that I haven’t been in charge of before, like planning out practices. Now it gives me something to work off of where I can now say, ‘I liked this, I didn’t like that.’ And then obviously getting feedback from players and the staff as far as what they thought worked and didn’t.
“It just kind of gives me a strong framework to go off of for the Santa Cruz season.”
The Warriors under Wilson went 5-3 this summer, 2-1 at the California Classic and 3-2 in Las Vegas. He’s happy with how they understood concepts better each day, gelling more as a team while trying to keep things as simple as possible. Like his players, Wilson felt more comfortable with each practice and game.
Adjustments and lessons were made in real time. Wilson and the Warriors were hit with a delay of game when his players took too long to be back on the court after halftime of the California Classic finale. Full timeouts are shorter in summer league, and he even received his first technical foul out of frustration during the first game in Las Vegas.
“I think the guys could tell I was a little more comfortable and a little more at ease as it went on, just because I was starting to understand the flow of things and how I wanted to do it,” Wilson said. “By the end of it I thought I was in a pretty comfortable spot of what to expect, staying locked in on the game.”
Length of games are shorter in summer league. Players have 10 fouls until their day is over. Everything feels rushed from a coaching and practice standpoint. The part Wilson found to be the hardest might come as a surprise.
“To me, it’s the messaging,” Wilson said.
The Warriors had 19 players on their summer league team, with 18 healthy enough to play. An NBA roster holds 15 players, and a good chunk stay in their warmup gear all game long. All but four players were rookies without any NBA game experience. Each tried to make a big impression, either on the Warriors or the rest of the league.
Not everybody received an equal opportunity. That’s life, that’s basketball. Those decisions didn’t always come from Wilson either.
Many of them came from the front office regarding who is in the game plan for a particular summer league game.
“It’s different to be in a spot where you’re telling a group of guys going into every game, ‘Hey, you’re not playing.’ As an assistant, you’re not really having those kinds of talks,” Wilson continued. “It’s just the consistency of everything. You’re just always having to constantly think of the dynamic of being consistent and keeping guys in the fold so there’s no major surprises. Even though they’re being told they’re not playing, I do think they appreciate the fact that you’re at least straight up without leaving stuff to the imagination.”
Wilson’s way of thinking there sounds like a direct correlation of learning from Kerr. The four-time NBA champion as a head coach is a master communicator and delegator. Kerr is quick to give credit to others, oftentimes praising Wilson’s help the past few seasons in player development, video preparation and especially his use of analytics.
His usage and importance went beyond his Golden State title. Kerr wants his players and staff to feel empowered, and Wilson gives him ample credit in getting him to where he is today.
“Steve has always been great, especially after I first started out here,” Wilson said. “My role always expanded, even within the video part of it. He let me do scouts, walkthroughs with the team, player development stuff. So I was kind of just doing a little bit of everything, and just getting a lot of tremendous experience.
“I never would have thought just even speaking in front of the team about something would be in the works, especially being in a video role. But this team’s always been great about giving these opportunities.”
A drive that spanned about 100 miles from his Augusta home to the Georgia campus started Wilson’s coaching journey 15 years ago. Off campus, his basketball classroom has only grown, with summer league on the sidelines having Wilson ready for Santa Cruz and getting him one step closer to being the next video room standout to hold the title of NBA head coach.
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