There are certain NBA teams that have done a lot of winning over the years, and though there are many organizational reasons why, the biggest is that they’ve had the best players. In the ’80s, the Celtics had Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, among others. The Lakers had Magic Johnson and James Worthy.
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The NBA has always been a league that revolves around its stars. Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen ran the show for the Bulls. The Shaq-Kobe Lakers were unstoppable, and so on. There are guys though who were never stars on that level, but who nonetheless always seemed to find themselves contributing to winning situations.
Call it good luck or fate or what have you, these guys, like Robert Horry for instance, always seemed to make the most of their comparatively smaller roles. Steve Kerr is one of those guys. He won five rings as a player, then went on to lead the Warriors to four more as a head coach.
He’s helped coach Team USA to two gold medals, one as an assistant under Gregg Popovich and one as the head coach. In an interview with The Athletic’s Zena Keita, Kerr was asked to describe his experience as what she called “a dynasty expert.”
“What does it feel like to be in a dynasty?” she asked. “When do you realize, ‘Oh snap, guys, we’re dynastic?’ And also, when do you realize when it’s closing?”
Kerr has lived through every stage of a dynasty. “Each case was a little different,” he said. “With the Bulls, they were already a dynasty, they had won three in a row, so I knew I was joining a dynasty. And when it ended, everyone knew it ended. I don’t know if you know this,” he deadpanned. “They did a documentary called The Last Dance.”
“The Spurs, I don’t know that I even knew I was part of a dynasty while I was there, because we won two championships in ’99 and ’03. I retired, and the dynasty really happened after that, and it was a different kind of dynasty. It was sustained success over multiple years,” he recalled.
After Kerr went out on top, the Spurs went on to win three more titles in the next 11 years, which really was different than the concentrated era of dominance the Bulls enjoyed.
Kerr took the Warriors head coaching job in 2014, and he immediately brought his winning ways to Golden State. They made five straight Finals and won three titles, and then after two years of missing the playoffs, they won it all again in 2022.
“This one sort of snuck up on us,” he said of the Warriors. “We didn’t really know, but once it did, we knew we were in the middle of it, and that was pretty cool.”
Kerr has always been one of the clearest communicators in the NBA. Perhaps that’s why he’s done so well as a coach. In that vein, he was refreshingly honest about the current state of the Warriors’ dynasty. After Keita asked him, “What do you think it’s going to take for the Warriors’ dynasty chapter to close?” he said this to say.
“Well it is closing, as we speak. We just don’t know exactly when it’s gonna end, and what we’re hanging onto is the idea that we still have something left in the tank. And if all the pieces fall into place, we think we have a shot, and so we’re trying to get one more.”
Golden State has certainly looked a bit long in the tooth this year, and they’re currently just 14-15 and in eighth place in the West. Winning another title, especially in a league where the Thunder look so dominant doesn’t look feasible for the Warriors right now, even with Steph Curry still at the top of his game.
Whether the Warriors are able to defy the odds or not, Kerr believes there’s something worthwhile in the journey.
“I think it’s the attempt when you’re in it that’s the most important thing,” he said. “Obviously, in rings culture, we all focus on who won, but there is something beautiful in the fight, in the quest.”
“And because we love it so much, because we love what we do, there really is a beauty in the journey to hang in there, and maybe reach the top of the mountain one more time, but if we don’t, and chances are we won’t, we’re not a favorite to do it. But if we don’t, and we still gave it the effort and had this experience together, that’s worth a lot. But we all know what that journey means to us,” the Warriors GM almost poignantly stated.
To be fair, it is a 82 game season and the Warriors seem to be finally coming together, especially since the win against the Suns.
