Steve Kerr knows Warriors' five-year NBA Finals run 'probably won't be repeated' – NBC Sports Bay Area & California

The NBA playoffs are almost six weeks old, and it's clear that the Warriors' five consecutive finals appearances, winning the championship three times, were remarkable in real time, but seem monumental in retrospect.

It is quite plausible that the Warriors will be the last team to accomplish such a feat.

“I think that's highly unlikely,” coach Steve Kerr told NBC Sports Bay Area this week.

The Warriors are not only the last team to win two NBA Finals in a row, but also the last team to make it to the Finals twice in a row.

The entire lineup has changed every year since 2019, when Golden State lost to the Toronto Raptors in its fifth consecutive Finals appearance. With both the reigning champion Denver Nuggets and their 2023 Finals opponent Miami Heat eliminated from the playoffs, two very different teams will face off next month.

When the Nuggets were knocked out of the playoffs last Sunday, they fell victim to the same monster that has plagued every defending champion since 2018: fatigue. It is as merciless as it is relentless, and it gets bigger every year.

“I think the run last season and the comeback and the amount of minutes our core players had to play,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said after the Game 7 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, “I think the guys are mentally, emotionally (and) physically exhausted. They're dead tired.”

Of course they were. Denver's 2022-23 season lasted nearly nine months, from the opening training camp on Sept. 27, 2022, to June 12, 2023, when the Nuggets made the NBA Finals. That's what it took to become champions.

They didn't have enough to repeat their title. The same goes for the Warriors, who were champions in 2022 and were eliminated in the Western Conference semifinals the following season. The same goes for the Milwaukee Bucks, who won it all in 2021 but were sent home in the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2022.

The Los Angeles Lakers, champions in 2020, were eliminated in the first round the following season. After winning the crown in 2019, the Raptors were stopped in the conference finals the next year.

“The first thing you notice is everyone is building their team to beat you,” Kerr said. “They're not just going after you. They're literally building their team to beat you. (Denver's Nikola) Jokic even said that after the loss. He said, 'This team is built to beat us.' If (the Timberwolves) don't have all three of those 7-foot-4 players, I don't think they're going to win Game 7 or the series.

“Once you've won, not only is everyone after you and gets emotionally charged, but everything is also turned against you. It gets more and more difficult.”

Each of the last eight teams to reach the Finals struggled with different factors, but what they all had in common was a season that lasted over eight months. Regardless of conditioning, the fatigue factor is real and undoubtedly contributed to Denver being exhausted after such a long season.

And any team that manages to endure five extended seasons in a row is going to endure a certain amount of torture and overcome it successfully.

“I'm still amazed at our guys and the energy they showed during that time,” Kerr said. “They took on all the challengers and kept coming back. Of course we had a lot of talent, but it takes more than that. It takes incredible passion and competitive spirit. And that's what our guys had.”

It also requires a willingness to adapt on the fly and carefully manage practice schedules. But that's not all.

The NBA and the players' association enter into a collective bargaining agreement to promote permanent equality. The collective bargaining agreement, with its numerous financial hurdles, is intended to combat the concept of dynasties and ensure turnover in the squad.

“It's definitely a problem,” Kerr said. “It puts more emphasis on developing young players. And developing young players while you're trying to win a championship – I know this firsthand – is not easy. (Malone) talked about it the other night after they lost Game 7. When you're the champion, all the forces conspire against you.”

Smart offseason and trade-deadline moves can change the balance of power. Winning a title is hard enough, but assembling a championship roster and keeping it—even past the NBA Finals—is nearly impossible.

The Warriors, who won the 2022 championship, have lost a key player in Otto Porter Jr. The Nuggets, who won the 2023 championship, have lost key reserve players in Bruce Brown Jr. and Jeff Green. After leading the Raptors to the title in 2019, Kawhi Leonard signed with the Los Angeles Clippers, his hometown team.

Then there is the natural evolution of the league and its players. The Warriors have done a wonderful job of maintaining their three-man core of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. They are valued now, but their reputation as legends will continue to grow over time.

“The league is just a lot better now than it was 10 years ago when I came here,” Kerr said. “Part of it is the example that Steph and Klay set with shooting. That really inspired a lot of young players, but also a lot of teams. There were a lot of other trends as well, like the space and the big players in the league shooting threes.”

“In terms of pace, skill and number of shooters, the league is just dramatically better. Going through a gauntlet of four playoff opponents – and most likely all of them could bury you and make 25 threes on any given night – just makes it that much harder to dominate.”

The Los Angeles Lakers reached three consecutive NBA Finals (2008–10) and won two. The Miami Heat reached four consecutive Finals (2011–14) and won two of them. The Warriors reached five Finals (2015–19). It was as if each team passed the torch to the next over a 12-year period.

The torch has been extinguished. The field is tightly packed heading into the finals, but it gets thinner along the way. And the teams that made it through last year have to defeat the biggest beast of them all.

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