Name: David Kelly
Position: Warriors General Counsel and VP/Basketball Management & Strategy
Where I’m from: Chicago
Where I call home: Oakland
What I’m focusing on: Issues related to salary cap management as we go into the offseason. My job is like three different buckets. One is on the basketball side, so on that end I focus on the salary cap. Day-to-day issues related to our playoff run is another thing I’m focused on, and then on a long term basis, any long-term planning related to Chase Arena.
Best advice: When I first started at the Warriors I remember (co-Owner) JOE LACOB saying something to the effect that people over rely on the past in terms of being predictive of the future. It doesn’t seem correct, but what he’s basically saying is he has an optimism for your ability to remake yourself and remake your brand. If you’re focused on the past you’re not in the position to remake yourself.
Exec I admire: Warriors coach STEVE KERR. He combines confidence, caring and compassion, and he empowers the people that are around him. That’s why he gets the most out of his staff and his players. He does that on the basketball side, but I try to emulate that on the business side.
Must have for a new hire: I look for energy and creativity. It takes a lot of stamina to succeed in sports. So a new hire needs to have the energy to power through any obstacles. You also have to have the ability to think about problems with fresh eyes.
Book shelf: The best book I’ve ever read is “INVISIBLE MAN” by RALPH ELLISON. It’s a book of fiction, and it’s kind of life changing for me.
Must-have music: My musical taste is kind of all over the map. For me, it’s a lot of DE LA SOUL, TRIBE CALLED QUEST, U2, ARCADE FIRE and MARVIN GAYE. Recently, just in order to get hype for the playoffs, it’s been a lot of KENDRICK LAMAR.
First thing in the morning: I wake up my kids, or if they’re awake already, I try to spend a little bit of time with all three. I wake them up, hug them, make them breakfast, and then the next thing I do is check to see what my schedule looks like for the day. But kids first.
Food for thought: The restaurant I go to all the time is Burma Superstar in Oakland. I love Thai food and Indian food.
Talking Tech: When the league decided to install cameras at all the arenas several years ago to track player movement, it shifted the amount of data that you can get. It’s not something that I necessarily use, but it’s something that has shifted the direction of basketball analytics. It’s revolutionizing the amount of data you have in order to crunch numbers, and we’re still just scratching the surface in terms of what you can really do with that data.
How I unwind: I really like to watch my kids play sports. Sometimes it’s not relaxing, but I really love on weekends watching them play basketball or soccer or whatever they’re doing. I also used to be a musician, so I record a lot of music. So I like to sit and work on music.
A day in the life: Going into a day, I have maybe three or five different projects or items that are hot-button issues that I’m working on. I try to make sure that I push those forward. But at any time, someone is going to walk into the office and have an issue or a question or want some advice on something that doesn’t have anything to do what I thought was going to be happening that day. So my day changes depending on what other people’s days are looking like, and that’s just the nature of the job. You’ve got to be able to focus on whatever your colleagues are working on.
