Marv Albert Is To Blame For Steve Kerr Turning Down The Knicks

There are plenty of people who could tell a lifetime’s worth of stories about how much it sucks to work for New York Knicks owner James Dolan, but it would all just be overkill at this point, because anyone who has even heard of old “Guitar Jim” knows that he’s not very good at what he does. Hell, there are Knicks fans who will never even meet the guy in their lives who will have worse things to say about him than someone like, say, Woody Allen, who was once rumored to be banned from the Madison Square Garden VIP lounge because he refused to give free testimonials for the team’s in-arena commercials. But nobody would know better about what Dolan is really like than longtime Knicks broadcaster Marv Albert, whose contract wasn’t renewed in 2004, because he basically wouldn’t be a cheerleader.

Albert’s TNT broadcast colleague Steve Kerr is now the new coach of the Golden State Warriors, but most analysts thought for sure that he’d be announced as the coach of the Knicks in this exciting new Phil Jackson era. It turns out that Albert, who opened up to the New York Daily News about what went wrong in the Knicks’ pursuit of Kerr, probably played a huge role in Kerr going to California.

“Well, I told him it never ends well there. Just look at recent history. It’s because of one man (Dolan),” Albert told me Thursday over the telephone. “There is no happiness there. I say this with all kinds of friends I have there and (the ones) at the MSG Network. Everybody hates being there. For coaches it’s very difficult. Steve couldn’t accept anyone (from MSG’s PR staff) following him around with a tape recorder. Like Phil, Steve is a guy who wants to say what he wants to say,” Albert continued. “He’s very opinionated, which doesn’t always work when you are at the Garden.”

During their conversations, Albert said Kerr asked questions, but it was clear he knew “what my whole situation at the Garden was.” (Via the NY Daily News)

We could act shocked that Albert would interject like this, but it was clear from rumors about the Knicks’ negotiations with Kerr that things were already screwed. He wanted 5 years and the Knicks reportedly barely offered 4, so when the Warriors stepped in with a 5-year deal, it was clear what he was going to do. Also, you could completely remove Albert from this scenario and Kerr probably already knew everything there is to know about Dolan, up to and including that he’s one hell of a guitar player.

Play your fans some more righteous tunes, JD. It’s going to be an even longer offseason than usual when Luke Walton is the new frontrunner to become the Knicks coach.