Steve Kerr Reflects on Warriors’ 73-Win Season: “No Way Anybody’s Gonna Break It”
Nearly a decade after the Golden State Warriors stormed through the NBA with an unprecedented 73-9 regular season, head coach Steve Kerr isn’t just reflecting on that historic run - he’s putting it in perspective. And in his eyes, the league may never see anything like it again.
Before Saturday’s game against the Charlotte Hornets, Kerr was asked about the Warriors’ 2015-16 campaign - a season that’s been getting renewed attention thanks to a social media trend looking back at moments from 10 years ago. His response was candid and grounded in the reality of what it takes to chase history.
“I remember at the time I thought, ‘No way,’” Kerr said, referring to whether the record could ever be broken. “And then, about a month ago, I thought it would be broken. And now, I don’t think there’s any way anybody’s gonna break it again.”
It wasn’t just nostalgia talking - Kerr pointed to the brutal demands of an 82-game season and the razor-thin margin for error that comes with chasing a record that requires near-perfection.
“You have to have good health - you have to have some luck,” he said. “And most teams probably aren’t going to push themselves that hard to get there.
It’s so difficult. My guess is it won’t be broken.”
That 73-9 Warriors team was a juggernaut, but the story didn’t end with the regular season. Despite their dominance, Golden State fell short in the 2016 NBA Finals, losing in seven games to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers after holding a 3-1 series lead. Still, Kerr remains proud of what the team accomplished - even if it’s not something they bring up often.
“We have a banner hanging in the facility commemorating the record, and, other than that, we never talk about it,” Kerr said. “It’s an incredible accomplishment. I mean, just stunning to think about winning that many games.”
And then Kerr dropped a stat that might be even more mind-blowing than the 73 wins.
“We went like 135 games without losing two in a row,” he said.
That streak - which actually lasted 146 games - spanned parts of two seasons and included the entire 2015-16 campaign. Golden State became the first team in NBA history to go through a full season without suffering back-to-back losses. The streak was finally snapped in early 2017 with consecutive defeats to the Wizards and Bulls.
To put that into perspective: in a league where even the best teams get caught off guard on a random Tuesday in February, going that long without dropping two straight is almost unheard of. It’s a testament to the Warriors’ consistency, depth, and relentless drive.
Golden State’s point differential that season - a staggering +822 - was the sixth-best in league history at the time. It now ranks ninth, thanks in part to a new challenger: the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Thunder turned heads this season by starting 24-1 - the same way the Warriors did in 2015-16 - and set a new single-season point differential record last year at +1,055. Heading into Saturday night’s action, OKC sat at 35-7 and was outscoring opponents by an average of 13.4 points per game, slightly ahead of last season’s 12.9. It’s been a dominant run, no doubt, but Kerr knows firsthand just how fragile a record-chasing season can be.
He shared a moment from late in that 2016 campaign that spoke volumes about the mindset of his team.
“We had a game in Memphis late in the year, and I was playing a lot of people in the first half. It was a close game at halftime.
I think I played 11, 12 people,” Kerr recalled. “Draymond came to me at halftime and said, ‘Coach, we all want this.
Don’t mess around. Let’s go get this.’
That was the mentality of the team.”
They went on to win that game - and the next two - to secure the all-time wins record. Resting players, easing off the gas? That was never on the table.
“There’s no way that we were gonna, at any point in that season, just say, ‘No, we’re not gonna play hard this game. We’re gonna rest.’ It just wasn’t even a thought.”
Kerr’s perspective is unique. He lived through two record-setting seasons - first as a player on the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, who went 72-10, and then as the coach of the team that broke that record two decades later. He doesn’t need hindsight to appreciate how rare those runs are.
“It doesn’t even require looking back at it,” Kerr said. “It’s just being in any NBA season as a player or as a coach.
You just know. You feel the strain of the marathon that the 82-game season represents.
There’s just too many things that can happen that throw you off for a game or two. Then, it’s gone.”
That’s the reality of chasing greatness in the NBA. One bad week, one minor injury, one cold shooting night - and history slips away.
The Warriors caught lightning in a bottle in 2016. And while teams like the Thunder are making noise, Kerr’s message is clear: don’t expect anyone to catch that 73-win mark anytime soon.