The Golden State Warriors believed they had little chance of acquiring Steve Kerr as their next head coach, so they went after Stan Van Gundy. After talks broke down with the former coach, who eventually decided to sign a massive deal with the Detroit Pistons, they decided to go after Kerr a little harder despite knowing the deep talks he was already in with the New York Knicks.
On Wednesday, Golden State swayed Kerr enough and surprisingly, agreed to a huge deal with the TNT analyst, from Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports:
Steve Kerr has reached agreement on a five-year, $25 million contract to coach the Golden State Warriors, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
Kerr passed on an opportunity to coach the New York Knicks and rejoin his former coach Phil Jackson, who is now running New York’s front office.
The Warriors management group lost out on Stan Van Gundy when he accepted a $35 million deal Tuesday to run the Detroit Pistons, and flew to Oklahoma City the same day to meet with Kerr. The Warriors left more convinced of Kerr’s readiness to coach the franchise, league sources said, and Kerr had a chance to further familiarize himself with the entire Warriors front office.
After the Warriors resumed their pursuit of Kerr, Jackson and the Knicks made a concession in negotiations, agreeing to guarantee the fourth year of their offer. The Knicks had resisted guaranteeing the fourth year for weeks, holding firm on three guaranteed years and a team option for a fourth year until consenting to Kerr’s wishes late Tuesday, league sources said.
Given how long and how badly Phil Jackson appeared to have wanted Kerr, this one has to be a tough pill for him to swallow. It seems Kerr probably would have accepted an offer from the New York Knicks much earlier had they simply given him the deal he was looking for. Nonetheless, New York will now have to begin searching for other options.
As for the Warriors, this is a very interesting hire, to say the least. Owner Joe Lacob and general manager Bob Myers clearly believe they have a roster capable of contending for a championship. They fired Mark Jackson, who won 51 games this season. Of course, we know winning and losing wasn’t the only reason for the firing, but it most certainly was a factor. For them, just getting into the playoffs and being in the middle of the pack among the juggernauts of the West isn’t good enough anymore.
Going with Kerr, who has no experience as a coach at any level, is a head-scratcher for many. The team now heads into the offseason with a sense of mystery in terms of what identity it will play with come next season. The Warriors’ biggest issue this season was their inability to play more efficiently on the offensive end. Is Kerr, who had philosophical disagreements with Mike D’Antoni – one of the best offensive minds in the game – as a general manager with the Phoenix Suns, capable of bringing out the best in Stephen Curry and the crew? At the moment, that’s the million-dollar question.
For Lacob, the decision wasn’t all that difficult. He provided some thoughts on Kerr and said Curry is highly supportive of the move. Sam Amick of USA Today has details:
“Look, we did pretty well with Mark Jackson,” Lacob told USA TODAY Sports by phone, his statement thick with irony but strangely logical. “In the end, it wasn’t working out, which only we can probably totally appreciate on the inside. No one is ever going to understand it. I get that (people) see the win total, and they think that’s all that matters. But we have an organization that’s 200 people, and everyone has to get along and work together and that’s just the way it worked out. …We went out and we wanted to find the best guy to lead this team to the next level.
“Yes, it’s true, (Kerr) has not coached before. But this is what management is all about. You have to be able to pick people, and he is incredibly prepared…Every detail you can imagine. He knew our roster in and out. He had assistant coaches he wanted to go after. It was like a tour de force. Look, at the end of the day I know he knows a lot about basketball. We’re taking a little bit of a risk on his coaching ability, but we did that with Mark and it worked. So it’s just about finding the right fit for the organization and a guy who has extremely high potential, is a hard worker and is very prepared. That’s what we have got.”
[…]
“(Curry) is extremely supportive,” Lacob said “That’s all I can tell you. We got Steve Kerr because of our players. We have great players, great character individuals. They all want to win, and I can just tell you that they’re very supportive.”
[…]
“I knew him through friends — and through golf, quite frankly,” Lacob said of Kerr. “I’ve been on golf trips with Steve before, so I know him socially for many years. He’s best friends with one of my best friends and some other people, so I’ve known him, but not necessarily that close or that professionally as has been portrayed.
“He is certainly somebody who we have always liked, sort of a great, intelligent guy. So he was on our list, and when we decided to make a change he was on our short list of people who we wanted to talk to.”
With the mammoth contract he signed, Kerr will earn more as a coach in five years than he did as a player in 14 years, via Tom Haberstroh of ESPN:
Steve Kerr made $15.8 million as a player, just signed for $25 million as a coach.
— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) May 15, 2014
More money and a better roster? It was pretty much a no-brainer for him, although he did struggle with the decision due to his relationship with Phil Jackson. Kerr opened up about the process to David Aldridge of NBA.com:
“It just felt like the right move on many levels,” Kerr said by phone Wednesday. “They have a good young team. The location is ideal. My daughter goes to Cal and plays volleyball. My oldest son is in college in San Diego and our youngest is a junior in high school. It’s just a short flight for them.”
“It was so tantalizing on many levels,” Kerr said. “Number one, Phil Jackson. Number two, the Knicks are a flagship franchise, one of the great franchises in the league. The last two weeks have been agonizing, in talking with Phil and (general manager) Steve Mills. They’ve got really good people there and I do think they’re going to get it turned around there. The Knicks could not have been better in giving me the space to make a decision, especially when I had a game to do every other night.”
“Ultimately, it was agonizing to say no to Phil because of what I think of him and what he’s done for my career,” said Kerr, who won three titles playing for Jackson in Chicago with the Bulls. “When Phil Jackson asks you to coach the Knicks, how do you say no? I think they’re going to turn it around, but going to be a big undertaking and it’s going to take time. The idea of doing that 3,000 miles from home, it just didn’t feel right.”
“I told Phil, ‘I think I have to pursue this other opportunity,’ Kerr said. “He gave me his blessing. He said go look at it, and do what was in my heart.”
As for wondering what he will bring to the table, here is a very general idea:
Kerr would not commit to running the triangle offense next season. “I learned from guys like Gregg Popovich, Phil and Lenny Wilkens,” Kerr said. “I have strong beliefs on spacing and ball movement and that will be reflected in our play.”
A BREAKDOWN OF WHAT WENT WRONG FOR DOC RIVERS AND THE LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS:
If you missed Doc Rivers’ rant on how the referees robbed his team of winning Game 5, here is the clip:
Here is a transcript, from Arash Markazi of ESPN LA:
“It was our ball,” Rivers said. “Everybody knows it was our ball. I think the bottom line is they thought it was a foul and they made up for it. Then, in my opinion, let’s take away replay. Let’s take away the replay system because that’s our ball, we win the game and we got robbed because of that call. It’s clear.
“Everyone in the arena saw it. That’s why everybody was shocked when they said ‘Oklahoma City.’ That was our ball whether it was a foul or not, and it was, but they didn’t call it.”
Maybe they got robbed. Or maybe, it was all just a creation of his own team’s doing:
For what it’s worth, Chris Paul took the blame for what happened in the final moments of the game, from Arash Markazi of ESPN LA:
“It’s me. Everything that happened there at the end is on me,” Paul said. “The turnover with 17 seconds left, assuming they were going to foul was the dumbest play I’ve ever made. To even put it in the official’s hand to call a foul on a 3 … it’s just bad basketball.”
“I didn’t feel like I did [foul Westbrook], but it doesn’t matter,” Paul said. “We lost. It’s on me. They scored and we have a chance to win on the last play and I don’t even get a shot up. That’s just dumb. I’m supposed to be the leader of the team. That can’t happen. The league can issue a statement tomorrow saying the ball was off them, but who [cares]? We lost.”
“We got to keep playing, but this one was bad, though,” Paul said. “This is bad. To work that hard and have the game and give it away … I pride myself on taking care of the ball and managing games towards the end. None of the guys on the team could have done anything about it. It was just me. … We shouldn’t have been in that situation. That’s on me.”
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