Steve Kerr popped back into public light on Friday as the same man with the same job — but maybe as a different kind of coach.

And the Warriors came out of the long limbo period with the same superstar life force, the same goals, and the same leaders — but maybe, for the first time in more than a decade, with a different and more moderate mindset.

The same dynastic figures all arrived at “an inflection point,” as Kerr said multiple times on Friday. And they had figure out what to do and how to hang together in a post-dynasty existence.

That’s what Kerr, Joe Lacob, Mike Dunleavy, and Kirk Lacob hashed out over the weeks following the Warriors’ season-ending loss in Phoenix last month. That was the set of forces that propelled Kerr into his existential career crisis.

And that’s what was settled among the Warriors’ stakeholders, as Kerr made clear at his hello-I’m-back presser Friday and then later on my podcast.

“I think there was a general agreement with all of us that we were in a different place than we’ve ever been in my [12 seasons as Warriors coach],” Kerr told me. “I think that was probably what I was feeling that night in Phoenix, too.

What does that mean with Stephen Curry still capable of greatness at 38 but also coming off a year when he missed 27 late-season games with a recurring knee issue? What’s realistic in a “different stage” for this franchise? What will that look like when the Warriors try to restock their roster?

The Warriors have always chased stars to try to keep the dynasty going. Right now, the potentially most interesting and available ones are either very old [LeBron James], often injured [Kawhi Leonard], or quite difficult to acquire [Giannis Antetokounmpo].

But Kerr is making it clear: He didn’t ask Lacob and Dunleavy to promise that they’ll land a big name just to get Kerr back on board. Kerr absolutely didn’t want that, anyway.

The Warriors aren’t looking for the final piece, anymore. Not when they need four or five other pieces just to get back into contention.

“No, no, there was none of that,” Kerr said. “And again, we are now in a different point organizationally. And that, to me, is the entire reason for this indecision from all of us over what the best course of action is for me. Because it’s not as simple as it has been in the past, where we knew we were a contender and we were starting every season thinking we can win a championship. And we’re now in a different place.”

This doesn’t mean that the Warriors won’t take a look at the potential market for LeBron, Kawhi, or Giannis. A Joe Lacob team will always examine pathways to landing the biggest possible names for the biggest possible splash.

But the Warriors’ star-hunting won’t be as urgent this offseason. Which leads directly to the next-most important thing: Unlike in past title-chasing years, when he infamously yo-yo-ed Jonathan Kuminga in and out of the rotation and set up Kuminga’s inevitable departure, Kerr agrees that it’s time to commit minutes to younger guys. That starts with whomever the Warriors draft with the 11th pick in the upcoming draft. Even if it’s a raw teenager

“Mike’s very confident we’re going to get somebody at 11 that can play,” Kerr said. “And I’m very confident I’m going to give that guy every opportunity to play. Part of that is there’s no Moses and there’s no Jimmy for the first half of the season.

“And we don’t have enough talent right now to say, ‘I’m not playing that guy because he doesn’t know this or that yet.’ We’re going to have to play the most talented guys and we’re very committed to the next era that’s coming. Making sure our foundation is right.”

Does that cool logic seem like a large leap from Kerr’s emotional pre-goodbye to Curry and Draymond Green in the final moments of the Phoenix loss — and Kerr’s bracing “these jobs all have an expiration date” comments in the postgame presser? Yes, it’s a huge philosophical leap.

But you get from there to his new two-year contract by following the genuine attachments that all of these guys have with each other and the knowledge that they want to end it on the best terms.

Kerr said he took a week to decide the big-picture question: Does he want to keep coaching? Then he went into a meeting with Joe and Kirk Lacob and Dunleavy to see how that might work.

“I really was open with them, just saying, ‘Look, if it’s time, it’s time,’” Kerr said. “And I was very much at peace with leaving. That was important to me to sort of let them know that what we have built is way too special for it to end on any sour note, with people being upset with each other. This was more about, ‘Let’s figure this out. Is this the best thing for the organization?’

“That’s what I mean by really healthy and mature, probably not something that happens often in sports. It was genuine, it was authentic, and we met again the following week to kind of go over everything.”

Dunleavy and the Lacobs wanted Kerr back, generally because they all agreed on the new vision, but pragmatically because there is nobody else they’d want to coach Curry and Draymond in their final centerpiece years.

“I will say, I think if Steph and Draymond had retired this year, I think I’d be gone,” Kerr said. “I think it would have just made so much more sense for me to walk away. … But I think given all the circumstances, I think it makes sense for me to come back. And ultimately Joe and Mike agreed.”

Here are some other highlights from our conversation …

• There were many things involved in Kerr’s decision. It wasn’t about just one game. But if you had to pick one as a representative of everything he knew he’d miss if he left, it was the Warriors’ exhilarating play-in victory over the Clippers two days before the loss to the Suns.

“Well, first of all, it’s one of my all-time favorite games,” Kerr said. “We’ve had so many amazing games, but it was probably a top-10 game in the 12 years we’ve had. And that’s saying something.

“It was just the first play-in game. We didn’t even qualify for the playoffs. But that’s how much the game meant to me and those guys. Probably because of the way this season went, the fact that Steph missed 27 straight games, the fact that we were on life support, basically, going into that game. It was just so special. It was such a great win.

“And ultimately, this is what we do it for. The players do it to feel that moment, the coaches — you work every day to achieve that level of play. And it hadn’t worked all year. We just couldn’t reach that level. Then to dig deep and find it was so meaningful. And it was probably a good metaphor for ‘you can’t get this anywhere else in life.’ You just can’t. And there’s a reason coaches get addicted to this work. It’s exhilarating. The camaraderie, the companionship, the collaboration, it’s just beautiful.”

• Kerr obviously has career options whenever he decides to leave the Warriors. But he said that it was never about measuring a future opportunity — say, going to ESPN to call games — against the Warriors’ job.

“It was never going to come down to, you know, weighing my options; it was always coming down to is this the right thing?” Kerr said. “Because this is my dream job. It really is. Not just coaching in the NBA but coaching the Golden State Warriors and the Bay Area and coaching Steph. It just can’t get any better than this. And that’s what I came back to — contemplating everything. I can still coach, but I would never get to coach the Warriors again. I couldn’t face that. I love the team and I love the organization and all the people in it. I love what I do, so we’re going to run it back. Simple as that.”

Kerr denied that he ever took meetings with ESPN executives. But — this is me, not Kerr — it’s clear that the network was aggressively pursuing him through his agent just in case he decided to leave the Warriors.

• When I asked Kerr specifically if, in attempt to cut down on turnovers, he might institute changes that dramatically reduce the Warriors’ patented split-actions, Kerr said there will always be that kind cutting as long as Curry is playing.

“Well, we’re definitely not going to get rid of split cuts for Steph Curry, I can tell you that,” Kerr said. “Because they still work. But what we have to evaluate is, what are the best things that we did last year, what were the worst things? How can we kind of tailor a more refined offensive system?

“As long as Steph and Draymond are here, they’re going to run pick-and-roll. The two of them together this year, when they were on the floor together, our offensive rating was [120.8], which would’ve been second in the NBA. So you’re still going to see a lot of Draymond-Steph two-man game. All the stuff they did at the end of that Clipper game that we don’t even teach, that’s just inherent to them and their 14 years together. But we’ve got to look at everything else and make sure we have the right blend.”

How about adding a player or two who can drive to the basket?

“Everybody needs that,” Kerr said. “You’re watching the Spurs right now, they have three different guys — [De’Aaron Fox] Fox, [Stephon] Castle, and [Dylan] Harper — that can all get to the rim whenever they want. That’s really hard to guard. When you face that defensively, it puts so much pressure on you. It makes spacing easier.”

• Kerr said that Lacob has never asked him to refrain from making political and social statements — not right after he’s made them and not in these job discussions. And he said he’ll continue to speak his mind on issues that matter the most.

“I mean, you tell me: Is there a more important issue that we have in this country than gun violence being the No. 1 killer of children? There can’t be,” Kerr said. “So this is something that’s affected my family’s lives, and I’m going to say stuff. Because I have a platform, because it’s my responsibility, I feel like. But it’s one thing to speak out on that and it’s another to, I don’t know, speak on something I don’t know as much about. Or, you know, attack someone’s character. I learned early on that I need to discern the issues, I need to know what I’m talking about, I need to do it with some dignity. …

“Joe has always given me the license to say whatever I want. He, rightfully as the owner of the franchise, doesn’t want any controversy. But he totally respects the fact that I am speaking out on issues that are important for our country. And I did make some mistakes early on, and I learned from that, and I think I do a much better job now of finding ways to make points without upsetting too many people, without misrepresenting the Golden State Warriors.”

• And finally, Kerr said he didn’t intend for his contractual situation to blow up into this kind of prolonged issue — and he promised it won’t happen again next spring. [Although he joked in the presser that even though he signed a two-year deal he could get fired a week into this coming season, anyway.]

“The reason I didn’t want to extend my contract two years ago was because I could sense this might be a natural time for everybody to move forward,” Kerr said. “I just thought, ‘Well, this won’t be a big deal.’ And it turned into a much bigger deal. It didn’t distract me at all, but it became a much bigger story than it needed to be.

“We didn’t want to deal with that again. Two years sounds great. I love my job. We agreed pretty quickly, let’s do two years and we don’t have to deal with all this stuff again next year.”