Curry, Kerr share a moment

The two bond over message on shooting

Stephen Curry has played for Steve Kerr for eight seasons now in the NBA, but while the star player and coach have a good working relationship, it's clear that the admiration goes beyond the job, too.

After the Warriors' 119-109 loss to the Mavericks, Curry said he was moved by Kerr's words during his pregame address after a gunman killed 19 children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas, where Kerr made delivering an emotional plea to lawmakers to pass a bill that would make background checks mandatory for every gun sale.

It's a topic that particularly hits close to home for Kerr, who lost his own father to gun violence in 1984, when Malcolm Kerr was president of American University in Beirut and was assassinated by gunmen.

Curry expressed his admiration both directly to his head coach and to the world, first sharing a tweet of Kerr's impassioned message to his more than 16.1 million followers, with the message “watch this as much as you watch the game tonight.”

He also approached Kerr before tip-off and gave him a head nod and firm handshake before beginning the game. Although no words were said at the time, Kerr said after the game that he “knew what he was expressing.”

“I appreciate his leadership,” Curry said of the pregame interaction. “It was on everybody's mind coming into the game. It's kind of hard to stay focused on going out and playing basketball knowing what happened in this state.

“I can't even imagine the pain for coach to say what he said, and every word he said was powerful, was meaningful. I accept that challenge of trying to figure out a way to, again, use my voice and platform to hopefully make change, and you can tell what it meant to him, come up in front of y'all and use this microphone to say what he said.

“Appreciate his leadership on that. He's been doing that since he — since I've known him.”

Even though Curry didn't use words, the head coach knew what his superstar was trying to communicate.

“It was unspoken but I knew what he was expressing,” Kerr said after the game.