New York Knicks president Phil Jackson said Steve Kerr made a verbal commitment to join the Knickerbockers before he changed his mind and signed with the Golden State Warriors as their next head coach, the Zen Master said in a press conference on Friday.

Jackson, who is dealing a myriad of problems as the new top executive for basketball operations of the Knicks, revealed that he thought he finally had his next head coach in Kerr after the former Chicago Bulls shooter verbally committed to assume the job.

However, Kerr suddenly had a change of heart once the Warriors coaching job became available, prompting Jackson to let him pick the best option.

''Unfortunately for him, he committed to me the day before the job opened with Golden State. So I had to kind of release him to actually go to this job and say you have to do what's right for yourself,'' Jackson said via Yahoo Sports. ''I understood entirely the process he was going through to have that job open up. That was something he kind of thought would be a good fit for him. So that's good, we're happy for him.''

When asked about the possibility of bringing another protégé in Brian Shaw to the Big Apple, Jackson was pessimistic about it as he believed they are not capable of pulling off another trade with the Nuggets for the service of the coach.

''Brian is under contract with Denver,'' Jackson said. ''Denver has everything that we owned for the last few years, so there's nothing else I want to give them.'