Phil Jackson

hired him, he finally acquiesced and called us and said, ‘I’m open to meeting,’” Myers said. “At that point it wasn’t, ‘ What changed?’ It was more, ‘ Where do you want us to meet you?’”

Within 14 hours, the two sides met in Oklahoma City. Within a half-hour after the meeting, Myers said Warriors brass “looked at each other and said, ‘Let’s hire this guy.’”

The Warriors offered a fifth year ($22 million total), but Kerr is adamant the decision never was about dollars or years. But wasn’t there a verbal commitment to Jackson?

“Yes, there was,” Kerr said. “I told Phil that I was going to come as long as we could work a contract out. And we didn’t ever work a contract out. I was going to go assuming they made a fair offer — which they ultimately did — but during that span when we started to negotiate, the Warriors’ job opened up. So I felt horrible because Phil means so much to me.

“Ultimately, if I would have been unhappy being 3,000 miles from my family going through a really rough rebuilding job, I probably wouldn’t have been a very good coach,” Kerr said.

Kerr admitted the difficulty in telling Jackson. But Jackson understood.

“It wasn’t like they lowballed me. But this was in my heart and I felt it,” Kerr said. “Phil couldn’t have been better. He said, ‘ You have to follow your heart. This won’t affect our friendship. I respect what you’re doing.’ That’s why Phil is Phil.”

Nearly halfway through the season, the Warriors are at the top, the Knicks under Derek Fisher are at the bottom.

“I totally feel for [Fisher]. The NBA is a roller coaster. It’s really fun when you win, really devastating when you lose,” Kerr said. “Unfortunately it’s part of the gig, and I guarantee you I’m going to be facing that at some point in my career.”

Just not this year.