Kerr opted against Warriors doc last year to avoid 'sense of finality'

Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said he turned down an opportunity to have the team's 2018-19 season filmed in the style of "The Last Dance," in part because he didn't want to send the message that their competitive window was closing.

"You think about our situation with the Warriors, and we didn't have a final season," Kerr told The Athletic's Sam Amick. "We're trying to keep this thing going. A lot of our players are still here, and we're trying to rev it back up, so there was no sense of finality. If anything, we're trying to avoid that."

"The Last Dance" focuses on the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls, who entered the season as the two-time reigning champions and winners of five titles up to that point under the reign of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and head coach Phil Jackson.

However, the team's management publicized that no matter the result of the season, the Bulls would move on from Jackson when his contract expired in 1998.

Kerr, who was a prominent role player for the late-1990s Bulls dynasty, didn't think a similar premise would have sent the right message to last year's Warriors team.

"So having everybody in, inviting the world in, and inviting cameras in and saying, 'Hey, we want to capture the final days of this run,' it's like you're basically telling your players that you believe this is ending, and also you're violating a principle of the sanctity of the locker room," he said. "So it never occurred to me, nor does it now, to do anything of the sort for our team."

As it happened, 2018-19 was the final year for a certain iteration of the Warriors dynasty. The team's injury-ravaged roster fell in the Finals to the Toronto Raptors, two-time Finals MVP Kevin Durant left via sign-and-trade to the Brooklyn Nets, sixth man Andre Iguodala was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies, and longtime reserve guard Shaun Livingston retired.