I judge the temperature of the Warriors' fanbase by simply counting how many "Fire Steve Kerr" tweets, emails and text messages I receive from readers and listeners.
I call it the Fire Kerr Quotient.
It's not exactly scientific, but my hypothesis is that the FKQ has never been higher than the last few weeks.
With the Warriors losing five straight games going into Tuesday's contest with the Clippers, nine of 11 overall, the frustration is understandable.
But what the Warriors' head coach did before that game at Chase Center is a perfect encapsulation of why those Fire Kerr messages have always been ridiculous.
Kerr is still a great coach in this league, because he understands that coaching at this level is about so much more than just X's and O's. The soft skills necessary to be a successful coach in the NBA are immense, and I don't think there's a better coach in the NBA when it comes to soft skills than Kerr.
Klay Thompson had been pressing as of late. The Warriors' wing is looking to find the form that made him one of the best two-way players in NBA history before he tore his ACL and Achilles tendon, but it simply has not clicked. Thompson was shooting, but his legs were not under him. The pace of the game looked a bit fast. It didn't take a trained professional to see that Thompson's trademark zeal had been zapped, that his confidence was a bit low.
But as he warmed up before Tuesday's game, he was treated to the surprise of a lifetime:
Will Ferrell, in character as Jackie Moon from the movie Semi-Pro, ran onto the court and warmed up with him.
Thompson quotes the 2008 cult classic often, probably because it's an exceptionally written, perfectly cast and preposterously silly film that discerning viewers recognize as the most underrated comedy of the last 25 years. I quote it with my friends at least once a day.
Sure enough, Thompson — who is wearing a sweatband this season as a tribute to his favorite fictional ABA player-coach — lit up like the sun in the Flint Tropics' dance routine when he saw Ferrell — sorry, Moon — take the floor.
And while Thompson didn't win the Flint Michigan Megabowl Tuesday, he did score 20 points, the Warriors beat the Clippers and he was beaming after the contest. Only time will tell if he can find his old game, but at least for a night, he was having fun again.
"That was so much fun," Thompson said. "That was some of the most fun that I've had on the floor this year."
"When I was doing rehab, and I was having some dark days, I would put that in and smile. I'm very thankful for that film," Thompson said. "I had no idea that was coming. That was so cool. Dreams do come true... I'll never forget that night."
Kerr made it happen.
The Warriors coach said this once-in-a-lifetime moment between two funny guys from Orange County started with a cold email from the movie star that Kerr, justly, found fishy.
Eventually, Kerr believed that it was really Ferrell emailing him and they got down to show business.
"We exchanged a couple of emails and concocted the plan," Kerr said. "He's a huge Klay Thompson fan and knows how much Klay loves dressing up as Jackie Moon. It felt like a good time to do it — make everybody laugh in a tough stretch in the season."
That's good outstanding coaching, folks.
Here's another unscientific number for you: 90, maybe 95 percent of being a head coach in the NBA is managing personalities. That's especially true when you're the head coach of a team like the Warriors. Assistant coaches are offensive and defensive coordinators now. There are entire branches of the coaching staff that handle player development. Rotations? That can be — and is — delegated to an assistant.
None of this is to say that being a head coach is an easy job. Far from it. The head coach still needs to synthesize all that information and present it to the players. The buck still stops with them.
But having to manage the personalities of 17 players in a player-driven league? That's a near-impossible task and priority No. 1.
Coaching the Warriors can't be the easiest thing, either. Golden State is a team that has both the boisterous Draymond Green and reserved Andrew Wiggins, the polished rookie in Moses Moody and the free spirit in Thompson, the ultimate professional in Steph Curry and Jordan Poole, a 22-year-old who sets a timer for his media availabilities — we get 90 seconds, no more.
This is a team with the veteran wisdom of Andre Iguodala and not one, but two 19-year-olds on the roster.
Kerr is tasked with steering a team that operates on two timelines, as demanded by ownership. Win now, but also develop players so the Warriors can also win later.
How many coaches in the history of the game could handle, much less succeed in such a situation?
The Warriors might have some on-court problems, but there's no serious drama, no nonsense behind the scenes affecting the team — a rarity, it seems, at the highest levels of the game.
Kerr was named one of the 15 greatest coaches in the history of the NBA a few weeks back. Yes, under him the Warriors have boasted incredible players, but that doesn't guarantee success.
And yet the Warriors have seen more success under Kerr than anyone ever thought possible when he took over.
Even as the Warriors struggle as of late, they're half a game back of second place in the Western Conference standings.
Remember: The Tropics could only muster fourth place.
Could the Jackie Moon moment have backfired, like a Moonshot promotion or a fight with Dewey the bear? Of course. Curry said as much after the game. One could easily say that Ferrell showing up, warming up and addressing the team before the game was a distraction at a time when the Warriors needed to find their focus.
But it wasn't.
"I think he was a huge catalyst for why we came out guns blazing," Thompson said.
It was another button pushed at exactly the right time by Kerr.
That's something the Warriors coach does quite a lot. Not that he'll ever receive credit for that. No, he'll just be blamed in vague ways for when the team is struggling.
But he knows that's all part of the gig. It's a gig he's great at.
So save your Fire Kerr tweets, Warriors fans. They ring hollow. Kerr might not be his team's starting forward while he coaches, like Jackie Moon, but he's as good as it gets in the areas where it really counts: the things you cannot count.
