Steve Kerr explains his political activism after returning to Warriors

Steve Kerr said his political activism never came up during his meetings with Golden State Warriors leadership ahead of signing a new two-year deal to return as head coach.

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Kerr set up a three-week period of uncertainty by not pursuing an extension ahead of this past season, the final of his contract. In the first week after the Dubs’ season ended, multiple reports said there were some within the Warriors organization who were frustrated by Kerr frequently speaking out on social and political issues. At the time, it was one of many factors that led some around the team to believe Kerr would not be returning to coach.

But over the last few weeks, Kerr and the Warriors, particularly owner Joe Lacob and general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr., held several meetings and hashed out his return, which was agreed to last weekend and made official on Tuesday. That brought things to Friday, when Kerr held a 35-minute press conference with Bay Area reporters. At one point, Kerr was asked if his political activism came up in the meetings and how he views his outspokenness going forward. 

“It never came up,” Kerr said. “I think I’ve learned over the years, the balance. And I think for the most part, you know, I’ve found a good balance where I can speak my mind on things that are really important to me and represent the franchise in a dignified way. And that literally never came up. That was not a part of the conversation at all, in terms of whether I was coming back or not.”

Kerr then did a mini media tour, doing interviews with the team’s two media partners — NBC Sports Bay Area and 95.7 The Game — and San Francisco Standard columnist Tim Kawakami’s “The TK Show” podcast. While NBC Sports Bay Area and 95.7 The Game didn’t bring up the politics topic, Kawakami did bring the topic up with Kerr, asking if Kerr ever felt like he needed to hear the Warriors say they were OK with him speaking up. Kerr said no and gave an extended answer on his viewpoint.

“What I realized early on when I started speaking out — which would have been I think 10 years ago, my second year … I spoke out about gun violence prevention and I made a bunch of mistakes, factual errors. … In the context about how people speak about gun violence, I made some mistakes in terms of the law and wording,” Kerr said. “And that’s why I went to work and started understanding, you know, how to have these discussions and trying to learn about the issue more before I spoke on them. And that’s been the best lesson for me, is if I feel strongly about something, then I’m going to speak on it, because I think it is important. I mean what, you tell me, is there a more important issue that we have in this country than gun violence being the No. 1 killer of children? There can’t be. There can’t be. So this is something that’s affected my family’s lives and I’m going to say stuff because I have a platform and it’s my responsibility, I feel like. But it’s one thing to speak out on that and it’s another to, I don’t know, speak on something that I don’t know as much about, and, or, you know, attack someone’s character. I learned early on that I need to discern the issues, I need to know what I’m talking about and I need to do it with some dignity.

“And Joe has always given me the license to say whatever I want. He, rightfully as the owner of the franchise, doesn’t want any controversy. But he totally respects the fact that I am speaking out on issues that are important for our country. And I did make some mistakes early on, and I learned from that and I think I do a much better job now of finding ways to make points without upsetting too many people, without misrepresenting the Golden State Warriors, put it that way.”

Kawakami said that him saying this as the Warriors coach makes it actually more powerful, given the NBA environment Kerr has for his profession. Kerr agreed.

“It’s real. … The coaches I’ve had, and I’ve played for the very best coaches of all time, I mean the authenticity shines through. And they are authentic, they’re real. I’m just being myself, and I think people appreciate that,” Kerr said. “I don’t think everybody agrees with me, but that’s not the point. The point is just trying to raise issues that I feel we should be talking about as Americans, and in a time where we’re completely divided politically, it’s really easy to just shy away from topics that are so important. And in particular, gun violence, I think we all have a tendency to want to look away, because it’s so horrifying. And if we look away, nothing’s going to change.

“And so I do feel like it’s kind of my responsibility, as a gun violence survivor, to raise the issue and to get people to actually talk about it and to create the change that we need because it has to come from us, it’s not going to come from some legislation. It’s got to come from a cultural shift in how we think. And that’s how I look at my responsibility.”

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And if it wasn’t clear how passionate Kerr was about the topic, it became clear when Kawakami asked if Kerr felt “some traction” on the topic, which Kerr answered affirmatively.

“There’s a lot of things that happened in our country that you can use as metaphors for things where it felt like a long slog — turning the cruise ship is a metaphor,” Kerr said. “Cigarette companies, what’s happening right now with social media. We didn’t know cigarettes were that harmful to people for a while, then we figured it out. We’re starting to figure out how harmful social media is. So we need, what do you need? You need regulation. My favorite metaphor is the auto industry. We have reduced deaths by 90% in auto-related deaths since the ’50s. Ninety percent. And we didn’t take away anybody’s right to drive a car, what we did was we developed driver’s training, driver’s ed, registration, registering your car, getting a driver’s license, child seats, air bags, speed limits on the road. All of these are just commonsense measures. And we could implement a ton of commonsense gun safety measures that would not inhibit people from buying guns, they would just force people to be more responsible. And the numbers are really shocking, when you look at them. There’s eight kids a day that are shot by an unsecured gun in a home — either by accident or suicide. And so people who own guns need to know this is not about the Second Amendment, this is about gun responsibility.

“And these, this is the type of work that is going to change the way we actually approach this, because the vast majority of us agree — it’s like 80% of us agree — that we should have universal background checks. But as you study this stuff, one of the things I learned was that 75% of school shootings happen because there’s an unsecured gun in the home. So why don’t we have gun laws, and we’re starting to see that in many states, that require gun owners to lock up their guns safely in their homes. And so that’s happening and there is momentum. But ultimately, the real momentum comes when we collectively decide, as a country, to protect each other and to protect our children and to not look away. And that’s why I’m passionate about all of this.”

Kerr’s passion is evident, but he told the New Yorker last month, “I don’t have any desire to go into politics” once his basketball career is over.