NBA.com: Are the ’96 Bulls the greatest team of all-time?
Kerr: I don’t know about that. I think comparing eras is really difficult to do just because of the league changes, expansion, player turnover, but certainly that team is right up there. To me, I don’t go back to the ’60s, but from the ’70s on, you think about the Lakers and the Celtics of the mid-’80s, the Sixers had some great teams, so it’s tough to compare one to another. But the Bulls are right up there.

NBA.com: Among the greatest teams of all time, which one would pose the biggest challenge to the Bulls?
Kerr: I am from L.A., so I grew up a huge Laker fan. Those Laker teams stand out to me. I think maybe the ’85 Lakers. That team to me may have been the best team of the ‘80s. I know Celtics fans would argue that their team the following year was, but that is what made that decade so great. You had two great teams going at it. But I am a Laker guy from childhood, so I’ll go with the ’85 Lakers.

NBA.com: When Michael rededicated himself to the game that previous summer after his abbreviated come back, did you fully realize or understand what kind of shape and drive he was coming to training camp with?
Kerr: You could just tell how motivated he was from the first day of camp. He was embarrassed about what had happened in the playoffs the previous year. We had all heard the talk about how he was making his movie that summer, and he had the court built on the set and all the NBA and college guys from the L.A. area were going out to the set. We heard about the three hour pickup games they were playing. Right from the beginning of training camp he kind of set the tone with his intensity. That whole month of camp was just incredible. Fights were breaking out. Every drill, every game, every scrimmage was just a complete battle. That set the tone for the competitive nature of that team and Michael was responsible for that.

NBA.com: What went through your mind when you heard the Bulls acquired Dennis Rodman? You had been with the team two seasons prior.
Kerr: We had lost to Orlando in the playoffs the previous year and a big hole for us was at the power forward spot. We couldn’t get key rebounds. Horace Grant killed us in that series. The whole summer, the team was looking for a rebounder. I think we drafted Dicky Simpkins, but nobody really felt that a rookie would be able to come in and play. So the Rodman trade made a lot of sense just from a position standpoint. Then you threw in the fact that he’s such a personality. We already had a team full of superstars and it was just incredibly intriguing as a player on that team to think what a zoo the whole scene would be.

NBA.com: What were the keys to primarily keeping Rodman in line for the most part that season?
Kerr: On any team there is a pecking order that needs to be established and it was easily done on our team because we had Michael and everyone else just sort of falling in line. It is a lot harder to do when you don’t have an established leader. We had the greatest leader in the NBA, maybe in all of sports. Everybody sort of fell in line behind him and Dennis wasn’t about to challenge Michael for that role on the team, nor did he want it. But I think Michael’s presence and Phil’s coaching. Phil really took to Dennis and vice versa. They hit it off right away. I think those factors made it an easy transition.

NBA.com: The ’96 Bulls transcended basketball and enjoyed a Beatles-esque type of following that season ...
Kerr: It was amazing because every game was sold out. Every game you would see the flashbulbs going off in the stands. There would be hundreds of people waiting in hotel lobbies in the middle of the night just for a glimpse at Michael and Dennis and those guys. It just never ended from one game to the next. It was a show and the most impressive thing was that Michael never let anybody down. He knew people were there to see him and he brought it every single night.

NBA.com: Kukoc moved from the starting lineup to the bench with the arrival of Rodman, yet he seemed to embrace that role winning Sixth Man of the Year honors?
Kerr: I thought it was the perfect role. When he was starting before that, he had to be a rebounder for us at the four. But by coming off the bench, he didn’t have to be a great rebounder, he just had to contribute. But Phil could always find the right combination out there to expose whoever was guarding Toni because he was a matchup nightmare. He was too long for the guards and too quick for the forwards and there were very few people in the league who could cover him, particularly when you had to expend so much energy on Michael and Scottie. I thought Toni was really a key part of that team, kind of an x-factor. When he played well, we were pretty much unbeatable.

NBA.com: Talk about the overall contributions from the bench that season ...
Kerr: We did a good job. It is always easier to be a bench player when you have a great starting five because you establish a role. It is tough to be a bench guy on a bad team because there is not really a set rotation and the coach has to experiment all the time. The fact that we had such a great starting five and a great foundation made it easy for all of us to slide into our respective roles. We had a team full of veterans on our bench. We had guys who really understood what the league was about, understood that they might not play every night and accepted that and still worked hard and stayed prepared all the time. Jud Buechler was the perfect example of that. He came in in some huge playoff games and played really well for us, and that might have been after going five or six games without getting in at all. We had a lot of guys like Jud who were just pros, guys who understood what it meant to be part of a team.

NBA.com: At what point during the season did you realize the team was onto something special, the pursuit of 70 victories?
Kerr: I remember a few Chicago writers brought that up in training camp and I thought they were nuts and that it was an unbreakable record, the 69 that the Lakers won. We got off to such an amazing start, I think we were 41-3, and I think at that point when we were just on fire midway through the season, we realized we had a chance to break that record. We never really talked about it much until probably late February or early March, when it was within sight. I remember late in the season, Phil said he would love to stay in the single digits in the loss column. We didn’t quite pull that off, but we obviously broke the record. Winning the 70th game up in Milwaukee was a huge thrill, a big deal. We had helicopters following the bus on the way over to Milwaukee. It was a huge story in Chicago and nationwide. By the time the end of the season came and we sensed that we were about to make history, we started to want to really do it.

NBA.com: Did winning 72 game place any added pressure going into the playoffs?
Kerr: Michael had put so much pressure on us all year that whatever we faced in the playoffs wasn’t going to bother us. Every practice through all year just continued the intensity, and when you have Michael you pretty much think you’re going to win every game. So he took so much of the pressure off just by being himself.

NBA.com: In The Finals, the Bulls were up 3-0 then proceeded to lose the next two games. What happened?
Kerr: They were a really good team. Payton and Shawn Kemp in their primes, Detlef Schrempf, Hersey Hawkins, they had a great team. We really shocked them out of the blocks, especially game three in Seattle. We pounded them. Maybe we relaxed a little bit, but more than anything they were just really good and they took two home games from us. But we never were really panicked. We had two home games to win it all. That was the main thing. I don’t think anybody really cared whether it took four games or six games. We just wanted to finish it right and we did.

NBA.com: Ironically, the 1995-96 season was the only season in Phil Jackson’s career in which he won NBA Coach of the Year honors.
Kerr: I think the Coach of the Year award is cut out for coaches of overachieving teams that maybe aren’t supposed to be good and turn out great. If you look at the history of the award, that’s kind of how it’s usually decided and I guess that is what was special about that season. We were so dominant, they had to give every major award to us. Michael gets the MVP, Toni gets sixth man, Phil gets Coach of the Year. We were so good you couldn’t not give those awards to those guys. I think Phil probably deserved that award more often than once, but it’s just the nature of the award.

NBA.com: Was that season the most fun you had in your career?
Kerr: I think so, probably because it was so special what we were doing.

NBA.com: When you reflect on that season, what really jumps out to you, even to this day?
Kerr: That we made history. That is a pretty amazing feeling to know that as a player you were part of NBA history. It is something that will forever live and I think we were aware of that while the season was going on. We all just kind of knew that something really special was happening and it was pretty amazing to realize that while it was happening.