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Steve Kerr Not Coming Back As Suns GM

Consider us surprised (and we’re not alone). Steve Kerr, coming of the Phoenix Suns‘ most successful season of his three-year tenure as the team’s general manager (and sitting at #2 on our Power Grid ranking of NBA Executives), will not return to the team next season.

From Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic:

Kerr’s contract expires June 30 but he had been expecting and hoping to return until negotiations for his contract and an opportunity to return to television as a NBA commentator prompted him to leave the organization after three years as its GM, Suns Managing Partner Robert Sarver said.

[...]

“I wouldn’t say it’s a big surprise,” Sarver said. “Television is what he did before he came on board. It’s a change of plans from during the season. It boiled down to a number of things, including lifestyle and the opportunity. I was hoping to have him back.”

[...]

With the Suns missing the playoffs in 2009 and changing coaches for a second straight year, there was a time when the rigors of the job were thought to be setting up Kerr for a return to home life and/or broadcasting once his contract expired. However, the surprising success of this past season with a roster he and his staff created with draft picks, trades and free agency signings had swung him back to the idea of returning.

Indeed, stepping down seemed to be the last thing on Kerr’s mind just last month, when Bill Simmons posted a lengthy piece about how everything finally broke the right way for Kerr’s rebuild of the franchise. Especially noteworthy now is this passage:

At some point, the dinner conversation shifts to a trade that fell through months ago. In retrospect, everyone agrees that it would have been absolutely horrible for Phoenix. I joke that, had it happened, Kerr would have been announcing that night’s game instead of watching from the stands. Everyone laughs.

“Hey, there’s nothing bad about TV,” Kerr says, still smiling. “That’s a great life!”

True. But this is better.

…Apparently not. And while we have no idea exactly why Kerr isn’t returning, it looks like the chance to return to TV is definitely part of the reason – which brings us back to this post. How is working in television this good?

Maybe Kerr just wanted to get out while things were – leave at the top of his general managing game, as it were. And while he’ll surely enjoy the big money and reduced stress of TV (and no doubt will be ranked highly on our TV and Radio Announcers list when his contract with the Suns expires), we’ll be surprised if, at some point, he doesn’t decide he wants the challenge of running a franchise again.

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