How to apply the Warriors business plan to your business plan

Source: NBA

Source: Sportsblog

Twenty years ago, while Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were gliding their way to the NBA Finals and yet another championship, if someone had claimed that the future MVP of the NBA would be an undersized guard, with a height of six feet and three inches, most people would have laughed in disbelief. The reigning conventional wisdom for decades in professional basketball was that a jump-shooting team could not win a championship. History had proved time and time again that winning teams were built around players that could score around the rim at will: Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Tim Duncan, and LeBron James are the standard size of an NBA superstar, and all have multiple championship rings. Success in basketball has long posterized superstars in mid-dunk, because those superstars worked their way to championships in the paint.

The greatness of the Warriors

Source: SportingNews

1. A star player. In the 2009 NBA draft, the Golden State Warriors had the 7th pick. Blake Griffin and James Harden were already off the table, but Stephen Curry, a junior point guard from Davidson on pace to break the legendary, all-time NCAA scoring record of “Pistol” Pete Maravich, was still available. Hindsight might be twenty-twenty, but at the time it was a major gamble to select a player of Curry’s, for the NBA, diminutive stature. No one yet knew that Stephen Curry would lead his team to an NBA championship six years later.
2. A business plan. The Warriors’s risk was  successful because it became the Warriors’ business plan. The Warriors were willing to build around the idea of a jump-shooting point guard. With Curry in place, the Warriors began adjusting their lineup and their coaching staff to give Curry the best possible support to play Curry-style basketball: fast-paced, passing ahead of the defense, and making snap decisions to either pull the three, drive for a lay-up, or rifle off a pass to an open man. In the next few seasons, the Warriors selected players capable of running and gunning. Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Harrison Barnes, Andre Iguodala, and Leandro Barbosa are all high percentage three-point shooters that quickly cover the floor to get open looks and then sprint to get back on defense. Thompson, Green, and Barnes, like Curry, were drafted onto the team, while Iguodala and Barbosa were veterans that the Warriors clenched through calculated trades.

Source: SFGate

3. Effective leadership. The calculation of the Golden State Warriors does not end with their players. Since they possessed Curry, one of the highest percentage three-point shooters of all time, they recruited a coach that holds the record for the highest three-point shooting percentage across a career. Steve Kerr drained some serious long buckets over the course of his sixteen seasons in the league, including five of the Jordan-era Bulls’s championship seasons and one championship season with the Spurs. So, what was Kerr’s three-point percentage? Kerr shot for .454 percent. Curry is currently in second place with .4434 percent behind the arc.

Behind Kerr, Luke Walton assists with coaching duties, and even sat in the place of Steve Kerr at the beginning of the 2015-2016 season, leading the team to a 39-4 start. So, what does Luke Walton possess that gives him the acumen to lead the Warriors? Luke is the son of the legendary Bill Walton, and Luke helped the Lakers win two championships during his ten year NBA career as a player. Both Kerr and Walton have the distinction of playing for Phil Jackson, one of the greatest NBA coaches of all time, winning eleven championships as a coach.
Warriors Basketball is business.

The Golden State Warriors operating decisions are worth considering as a business model. So what are the key take aways for a non-basketball business? The Warriors mixed finding raw talent with proven veterans. They paired the youth and verve of Curry, Thompson, and Green with veteran playmakers along with the wisdom and tested abilities of Coach Kerr and Walton. Although, here again there is an element of risk. Steve Kerr was a rookie coach in 2014, and in 2015, when Walton sat as interim head coach, that was also his first time in the head coach position. However, placing Kerr and Walton at the helm of the Warriors is a calculated risk. With Kerr and Walton’s experience playing for Phil Jackson, they are aware of how a great coach leads his players.

Source: bloncampus

Creating a winning team in any business takes calculated risk. Calculated risk is risk that is managed by creating an atmosphere of success. While it seemed unlikely that the jump-shooting Curry could lead a team to a championship, the Warriors gave him the best chance he could have by placing him under a coach with a historic three-point shooting record who knows what championship teams do. And what do championship teams do? They respond to adversity intelligently. In an NBA increasingly hostile to Curry, the Warrior coaching staff has created shooting drills that require Curry to chase down a ball and then score a three on two defenders.

One of the main reasons the Warriors risked building a team around Curry was because of theoretical statistics. The Warriors front office and coaches alike studied numbers that revealed that the most effective offense results from a mixture of taking high percentage shots in the paint as well as uncontested three-point shots. Mid-range jumpers, only worth two points and high in difficulty, are the worst shots to take statistically. While Curry goes against the ideal plan and takes plenty of highly contested threes, he makes near-impossible long shots as if he were flipping in layups.

The key take-away here? The Warriors didn’t merely discover they had a championship team, they built it from the ground up by applying solid business principles. They paired budding talent with veteran skill. As a result, fans can be found wearing Stephen Curry’s jersey in every NBA arena, and the Warriors are breaking franchise records and NBA records alike.

So, really, what does basketball have to do with business?

In today’s business world, having a professional, streamlined presence on the internet is critical for meeting the needs of customers.  When the Internet first came along, business owners were slow to accept the idea that bricks and mortar stores could be replaced by an online system for viewing and buying products or that prospective clients or other businesses would feel comfortable interfacing virtually. But, just as a jump-shooting team has now won an NBA championship and continues to break records, the day of carrying out business on the internet has dawned.

Source: Blox.xo.com

Just how much business takes place on the web? E-Commerce accounts for over one-third of all business to consumer sales globally. In the United States, over three hundred billion dollars is spent on the web each year. An internet website can visibly increase a business’s profit margins. For example, after Two Leaves and a Bud Tea Company redesigned their website, they enjoyed a thirty-four percent increase in revenue.

The Warriors are well aware of the importance of presenting their best face on the internet. Their webpage www.nba.com/warriors is loaded with information about the team and also works as a storefront to sell tickets to Warriors games and gear.

Not just anyone can design a website that results in a business’s growth. The Warriors chose personnel that had delivered in the past; they went with names they could trust. When you are ready to develop your presence on the web, choose a team that can deliver results: choose Design Source Media.

Question: How can you apply the Warriors business plan to increase the value of your organization? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

How to apply the Warriors business plan to your business

Twenty years ago, while Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were gliding their way to the NBA Finals and yet another championship, if someone had claimed that the future MVP of the NBA would be an undersized guard, with a height of six feet and three inches, most people would have laughed in disbelief. The reigning conventional wisdom for decades in professional basketball was that a jump-shooting team could not win a championship. History had proved time and time again that winning teams were built around players that could score around the rim at will: Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Tim Duncan, and LeBron James are the standard size of an NBA superstar and all have multiple championship rings. Success in basketball has long posterized superstars in mid-dunk, because those superstars worked their way to championships in the paint.

In the 2009 NBA draft, the Golden State Warriors had the 7th pick. Blake Griffin and James Harden were already off the table, but Stephen Curry, a junior point guard from Davidson on pace to break the legendary, all-time NCAA scoring record of “Pistol” Pete Maravich, was still available. Hindsight might be twenty-twenty, but at the time it was a major gamble to select a player of Curry’s--for the NBA--diminutive stature. No one yet knew that Stephen Curry would lead his team to an NBA championship six years later.

So, just what made the Warriors’ risk successful? The Warriors were willing to build around the idea of a jump-shooting point guard. With Curry in place, the Warriors began adjusting their lineup and their coaching staff to give Curry the best possible support to play Curry-style basketball: fast-paced, passing ahead of the defense, and making snap decisions to either pull the three, drive for a lay-up, or rifle off a pass to an open man. In the next few seasons, the Warriors selected players capable of running and gunning. Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Harrison Barnes, Andre Iguodala, and Leandro Barbosa are all high percentage three-point shooters that quickly cover the floor to get open looks and then sprint to get back on defense. Thompson, Green, and Barnes, like Curry, were drafted onto the team, while Iguodala and Barbosa were veterans that the Warriors clenched through calculated trades.

Jan 21, 2015; Oakland, CA, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) shoots the ball against the Houston Rockets during the third quarter at Oracle Arena. The Warriors won 126-113. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

Source: myloancalculus.com

The calculation of the Golden State Warriors does not end with their players. Since they possessed Curry, one of the highest percentage three-point shooters of all time, they recruited a coach that holds the record for the highest three-point shooting percentage across a career. Steve Kerr drained some serious long buckets over the course of his sixteen seasons in the league, including five of the Jordan-era Bulls’s championship seasons and one championship season with the Spurs. So, what was Kerr’s three-point percentage? Kerr shot for .454 percent. Curry is currently in second place with .4434 percent behind the arc.

Behind Kerr, Luke Walton assists with coaching duties, and even sat in the place of Steve Kerr at the beginning of the 2015-2016 season, leading the team to a 39-4 start. So, what does Luke Walton possess that gives him the acumen to lead the Warriors? Luke is the son of the legendary Bill Walton, and Luke helped the Lakers win two championships during his ten year NBA career as a player. Both Kerr and Walton have the distinction of playing for Phil Jackson, one of the greatest NBA coaches of all time, winning eleven championships as a coach.

So what does all this talk about building winning teams have to do with business?  The Golden State Warriors are a business, and their operating decisions are worth considering as a business model. So what are the key take aways for a non-basketball business? The Warriors mixed finding raw talent with proven veterans. They paired the youth and verve of Curry, Thompson, and Green with veteran playmakers along with the wisdom and tested abilities of Coach Kerr and Walton. Although, here again there is an element of risk. Steve Kerr was a rookie coach in 2014, and in 2015, when Walton sat as interim head coach, that was also his first time in the head coach position. However, placing Kerr and Walton at the helm of the Warriors is a calculated risk. With Kerr and Walton’s experience playing for Phil Jackson, they are aware of how a great coach leads his players.

Creating a winning team in any business takes calculated risk. Calculated risk is risk that is managed by creating an atmosphere of success. While it seemed unlikely that the jump-shooting Curry could lead a team to a championship, the Warriors gave him the best chance he could have by placing him under a coach with a historic three-point shooting record who knows what championship teams do. And what do championship teams do? They respond to adversity intelligently. In an NBA increasingly hostile to Curry, the Warrior coaching staff has created shooting drills that require Curry to chase down a ball and then score a three on two defenders.

Source: HoopsJunction

One of the main reasons the Warriors risked building a team around Curry was because of theoretical statistics. The Warriors front office and coaches alike studied numbers that revealed that the most effective offense results from a mixture of taking high percentage shots in the paint as well as uncontested three-point shots. Mid-range jumpers, only worth two points and high in difficulty, are the worst shots to take statistically. While Curry goes against the ideal plan and takes plenty of highly contested threes, he makes near-impossible long shots as if he were flipping in a layup. The key take-away here? The Warriors didn’t merely discover they had a championship team, they built it from the ground up by applying solid business principles. They paired budding talent with veteran skill. As a result, people can be found wearing Stephen Curry’s jersey in every NBA arena, and the Warriors are breaking franchise records and NBA records alike.

Source: NBAJerseyFan

In today’s business world, having a professional, streamlined presence on the internet is critical for meeting the needs of customers. Just how much business takes place on the web? eCommerce accounts for over 1/3rd of all business to consumer sales globally. In the US, over 300 billion dollars is spent on the web each year.

The Warriors are themselves well aware of the importance of presenting their best face on the internet. Their webpage www.nba.com/warriors is loaded with information about the team and also works as a storefront to sell tickets to Warriors games and gear.

An internet website can visibly increase profit margins. After Two Leaves and a Bud Tea Company redesigned their website, they enjoyed a 34% increase in revenue. eCommerce is a high growth only expected to take a larger share of consumer.

A professional website is not a substitute for a professionally run business. When solid business practices are in place and a business has value to offer to customers, it is time to showcase that value with a professional website. Similarly, it wouldn’t do to have just any six foot three incher running point guard for the Warriors. The Warriors chose Steph because it was a calculated risk. Who will you entrust to build your business’s web presence?