Steve Kerr's been beating the odds his whole life

It was Jordan's fifth championship, and Kerr's second. NBA.com, the league's official Web site, ranks the shot as the 13th-greatest moment in finals history.

"There's been some misconceptions about what actually happened, and I want to clear it up," Kerr said. "When we called timeout with 25 seconds to go and went into the huddle, Phil told Michael, 'I want you to take the last shot,' and Michael said, 'You know, Phil, I don't feel real comfortable in these situations, so maybe we ought to go in another direction.'"

The camera panned to the audience. Jordan was cracking up, just as he would years later when Kerr did his impromptu "Mouse in the house!" routine.

Kerr continued, "And then Scottie [Pippen] came in and he said, 'You know, Phil, there's that commercial that says [Michael's] been asked to do this 26 times and failed. Why don't we go to Steve?'"

Now everyone's in stitches.

"So I thought to myself, 'Well, I guess I got to bail Michael out again. But I've been carrying him all year, so what's one more time?' Anyway, the shot went in and that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it."

The Bulls won their third straight championship the following year, and Steve Kerr's role remained important, if less dramatic.

Michael Jordan retired again after the Bulls' second three-peat, and the team soon broke up.

Kerr was traded to the San Antonio Spurs in the off-season, where he would join budding superstar Duncan, veteran big man David Robinson, and his old Arizona teammate and pal Sean Elliott — then battling a rare kidney disease that necessitated a transplant after the season.

The guy who once had hoped to play in the NBA long enough to win a pension signed a deal that brought him about $11 million before he retired after the 2003 season.

San Antonio won the 1999 title, its first as a franchise, beating the New York Knicks after a strike-shortened season. With his latest ring, Kerr became the only non-Boston Celtic in NBA history to be a member of four consecutive championship teams.

Kerr had one more amazing arrow in his quiver, but that would have to wait four years, until the night of May 29, 2003, which was Game 6 of that year's NBA Western Conference championship in Dallas.

By then, Kerr's body was feeling the effects of playing a physically demanding sport for so long. He had played little during the regular season and during the team's previous 17 playoff games.

"I was trying to stay afloat so I might contribute at some point," he says. "I was trying to go out a winner — not a lot of people get to do that."

Dallas was pounding San Antonio by 15 points in the second half when Coach Gregg Popovich, in a desperation move, decided to stick the old gunslinger in the lineup.

Kerr soon found himself open deep in the left corner, and let it fly. Swish. Then he hit another three-pointer, and another, and yetanother, four in all.

Dallas called time-out after Kerr's final basket, as the entire Spurs team jumped up and down like teenagers.

An ebullient David Robinson slapped Kerr on the butt, a grin on his face. The Admiral, as the Naval Academy graduate was known, also was planning to retire after the 2003 playoffs.

San Antonio wound up beating the Mavs by 12 points to win the series. Afterward, TNT's Ernie Johnson asked Kerr to sum up his performance.

Rather than praise the Lord, his coach, and the offensive line (wait, that's football), Kerr thanked the late baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams for allowing him to escape the Scotts­dale cryogenic freezing chamber where they both had been "residing."

It was a jab at his lack of playing time that season.

Kerr resumed his place on the bench as the Spurs beat the New Jersey Nets in the Finals to take their second crown in four years.

"That night in Dallas was a perfect culmination for me, a perfect way to go out," he says. "It confirmed what I've always believed, that keeping at something will pay off in the end."

A month or so after that final season, TNT called him with a proposition. The bosses had loved his zany shtick after the Dallas game and wanted to hire him for the network's NBA broadcasts.

Kerr took the job.

He says it seemed like a great fit — not to mention the pay and that he'd be able to spend far more time with his family.

Then, in late 2003, wealthy UA grad Robert Sarver, a few years older than Kerr, came courting with a dream.

Not long before that, Lute Olson had introduced Robert Sarver to Steve Kerr.

Sarver had dated one of Olson's daughters years earlier, and the coach had stayed in touch. During the intervening years, Sarver had amassed a fortune, much of it in banking and real estate in the San Diego area.