Steve Kerr has spent more than a decade on the Golden State Warriors’ sideline, narrowing his eyes at referees, rival coaches and more than a few grim late-game finishes. Earlier this week, one of those famous glares found an audience he hadn’t anticipated: a few rows behind his own bench.
During a preseason matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers, the Warriors coach was strolling past his players when something in the stands halted him mid-step. His eyes narrowed and his head tilted.
For several tense seconds, the four-time champion coach looked as if he were trying to solve a riddle no one had warned him about.
Fans captured the moment on camera. Once the clip circulated on social media, viewers immediately recognized the normally unflappable 61-year-old who had been caught off guard.
The game itself was meant as a low-stakes tune-up. Golden State defeated the Lakers 101-89 on Oct. 13 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, according to Bleacher Report. The two teams are set to meet again when the regular season begins on Wednesday, Oct. 21, in Los Angeles.
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But nobody is talking about the box score. The viral footage, stitched together from the team’s TV broadcast and a fan’s phone, shows a gray-haired man in a dark pullover making his way to a seat directly behind the Warriors bench with a beer in hand and a couple of kids in tow. He has the same silver swoop of hair, the same sharp jawline and the same squint.
It was Steve Kerr, just not the one getting paid to coach. The man has been widely identified online as Steve Gillis, a Las Vegas resident who first went viral as Kerr’s double more than two years ago. The real Kerr clearly clocked him. He turned and held a long, bewildered stare while his look-alike appeared to glance right back.
That double take was all the internet needed. On Threads, one user joked, “I thought I was looking at Steve Kerr until I saw Steve Kerr.” Another confessed, “Without the caption, I thought Steve Kerr was sneaking in a beer mid game.”
Others tried to read the coach’s mind. “He’s looking like, did they just let me know they cloned me and put him in my face like that?” one person wrote. Someone else simply named the stranger “Doppelgankerr.”
Another commenter went full sci-fi and joked: “OH NO THEY’VE SEEN EACH OTHER OUR TIMELINE WILL BE DESTROYED.”
It’s unclear whether the two men exchanged any words this time. But this wasn’t the first time Gillis turned heads at a Warriors game.
He first set the internet on fire in March 2024, when TV cameras found him in the crowd at Chase Center in San Francisco during a Warriors loss to the San Antonio Spurs, as seen in this X post.
At the time, the Las Vegas Review-Journal identified him as an English teacher at Bishop Gorman High School and a club volleyball coach who co-founded the Summerlin Volleyball Academy. His résumé also includes a stint on the U.S. men’s volleyball coaching staff, so both Steves can claim they’ve coached for Team USA. Kerr himself led the American men’s basketball team to Olympic gold in Paris in 2024.
The resemblance was so strong that night that the Warriors’ own broadcast crew joked he looked more like Kerr than Kerr himself. Gillis later said that Sean Elliott, Kerr’s former Spurs teammate, shook his hand, and that tennis legend Roger Federer stopped for a selfie with him at halftime.
For Kerr, being stared at comes with the job. The outspoken coach has never been shy about speaking his mind, whether he was criticizing Anthony Davis for trying to force his way out of New Orleans or weighing in on issues far bigger than basketball.
Look-alike mix-ups are a popular internet pastime, though they don’t always land this harmlessly. Black celebrities get mistaken for one another by people who aren’t looking closely, often when the stars look nothing alike. In Kerr’s case, the confusion is completely understandable.
With the season opener against the Lakers just days away, Warriors fans have one more thing to watch for: whether a second Steve Kerr shows up behind the bench, beer in hand.
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