Warriors Coach Steve Kerr Takes the High Road With Response to Donald Trump’s Criticism

President Donald Trump weighed in on the storylines surrounding the NBA, China, and Hong Kong this week, saying that Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr was “pandering to China” due to the manner in which he responded to a recent incident involving the Houston Rockets. He compared the Warriors head coach to a scared little boy, a comment to which Kerr has since responded.

“You stop and you think, ‘well, this is every day. Just another day,’” Kerr said on Thursday. “I was the shiny object yesterday, there was another one today, there’ll be a new one tomorrow, and the circus will go on.”

This comment came in response to Trump saying that both Kerr and San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich are quick to criticize the United States of America, but “when they talk about China, they don’t want to say anything bad.”

“I watched this guy Steve Kerr. He was like a little boy who was so scared to be answering the question,” Trump said on Wednesday, per USA Today. “He couldn’t answer the question. He was shaking like, ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He didn’t know how to answer the question. Yet, he’ll talk about the United States very badly. I watched Popovich do sort of the same thing. But he didn’t look quite as scared, actually.”

Throughout Trump’s tenure in office, Kerr has been outspoken about the president. Receiving criticism about his response to this situation in China could have been an opportunity to double down with his comments, but Kerr instead talked about the Oval Office in broad terms.

For example, he cited an interaction with President Ronald Reagan following the death of his father from a terrorist attack in the 1980s. He was invited to the White House, along with his mother, in order for the president to talk about his father’s service.

Now, however, Kerr believes that there has been a significant change in the Oval Office. He is not happy with the current situation, and he has hopes that there will be a “mature unifier from either party” that can sit in the chair and “restore some dignity” to the Oval Office.

In recent days, the NBA has been under scrutiny due to the general manager of the Houston Rockets coming out in support of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong in a tweet that has since been deleted. In response, China and the internet giant Tencent put together a blackout of NBA coverage, focusing on the Houston Rockets.

The general manager in question, Daryl Morey, apologized to China for his comments while Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta said that Morey does not speak for the team. Finally, commissioner Adam Silver apologized while also saying that Morey can exercise his freedom of expression.

Despite these comments from the Rockets and the NBA’s offices, China’s state-owned broadcasting network, CCTV, suspended all plans to air NBA preseason games and said that there would be an investigation into the cooperation and all exchanges involving the NBA.