Champion Coach Recalls Knicks' Offer

“I would have lasted two years," Kerr bluntly declared. "Then I would have gone back to doing TV.”

At the time, New York and Golden State were trending in wildly different directions: having ousted Mike Woodson less than a year after a second-place finish in the East, the Knicks bid farewell to several familiar faces from that journey, including Tyson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Iman Shumpert, and JR Smith. Franchise face Carmelo Anthony was still around but several public strifes with New York management overshadowed his sterling play on the floor.

Golden State, in the early stages of its Curry era, had reached the playoffs in consecutive seasons but that didn't save former Knick Mark Jackson from getting the axe. Still, the Knicks appeared to have an edge in obtaining Kerr's services, as basketball operations were being overseen by Phil Jackson, who collaborated with him on three championship runs with the Chicago Bulls.

Ultimately, however, Kerr opted for the Bay, and the rest is history: amidst Kerr's prosperous run, the Knicks have had six different men (including two interim bosses) occupy their head coaching spot and a seventh is coming after the surprise firing of Tom Thibodeau.

In lieu of Kerr, the Knicks hired another former Jackson protege in five-time champion Derek Fisher, who oversaw one of the worst seasons in team history at 17-65 and was fired just past the midway point of year two. Jackson himself departed in 2017 with nary a playoff appearance to his name.

Though the Knicks have gained some form of notoriety for reaching out to actively employed coaches in their quest to find Thibodeau's successor, SNY's Ian Begley has mentioned that Kerr has not been involved in such speculation.