Trump ridicules remarks by Kerr
President says coach ‘shaking’ over China rift
President Donald Trump pulled the Warriors into the center of the ongoing discussion about the NBA’s rift with China, mocking head coach Steve Kerr on Wednesday for his answer about the recent backlash surrounding Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey’s comments.
“I watched this guy, Steve Kerr, and he was like a little boy, he was so scared to be even answering the question,” Trump said. “He couldn’t answer the question. He was shaking. ‘Oh, oh, oh, I don’t know. I don’t know.’ He didn’t know how to answer the question, and he’ll talk about the United States very badly.
“I watched (Spurs head coach Gregg) Popovich, sort of the same thing, but he didn’t look quite as scared, actually. They’ll talk badly about the United States, but when the talk’s about China, they don’t want to say anything bad. I thought it was pretty sad, actually.”
Trump’s comments came two days after Kerr was asked about China’s backlash against Morey’s sincedeleted tweet supporting prodemocracy protesters in Hong Kong.
Kerr answered: “It’s a really bizarre international story, and a lot of us don’t know what to make of it. So, it’s
something I’m reading about just like everybody is, but I’m not going to comment further than that.
“What I’ve found is that it’s easy to speak on issues that I’m passionate about and that I feel like I’m wellversed on, and I’ve found that it makes the most sense to stick to topics that fall in that category. So, I try to keep my comments to those things, and so it’s not difficult. It’s more I’m just trying to learn.”
Popovich — a close friend and mentor of Kerr — lauded NBA Commissioner Adam Silver on Tuesday for supporting freedom of speech amid the tiff with China, which has started to sever ties with the league.
In the wake of Morey tweeting Friday, “Fight for Freedom. Stand for Hong Kong,” the Chinese Consulate General in Houston rebuked Morey and the Rockets. The Chinese Basketball Association, whose president is former Rockets center Yao Ming, announced plans to cut relations with Houston.
China has canceled the G League’s planned exhibition games between affiliates of the Rockets and Dallas Mavericks scheduled for later this month in the country. Tencent — the TV partner for the NBA in China — will no longer broadcast Rockets games, or games this week between the Lakers and Nets in Shanghai (Thursday) and Shenzhen (Saturday).
Anta, a Chinese sports brand that sponsors Warriors players Klay Thompson, Kevon Looney and Jacob Evans, will stop contract renewal negotiations with the NBA. Asked about his decision to sign with Anta, Evans said, “I had a lot of interest in signing with Anta, just because it was different. I knew that I got drafted to the Warriors and how big the team was in China.”
Silver flew to Shanghai on Wednesday to meet with officials and some of the league’s business partners there in hopes of finding common ground. China has been the NBA’s most important foreign market for three decades, with the Warriors recently emerging as the country’s favorite team.
Warriors point guard Stephen Curry, who himself has been publicly criticized by Trump, said Wednesday, “I’ve got to welcome Steve to the club, first and foremost. That’s kind of par for the course there. We’ve obviously been really outspoken since I can remember in terms of our organization and all that.”
Asked about what it’s like to get called out by the president, Curry said, “It’s weird because I figured he’d have something better to do with his time.”
Curry, who has visited China with Under Armour each of the past six years, went on to echo Kerr’s sentiment that the Warriors make a point to only speak out on matters of public discourse that they’ve researched extensively. Like Kerr, Curry didn’t feel comfortable speaking on the China issue until he read more about it.
Asked whether he’ll go to China next summer, Curry said “I’m not sure.”
“That’s been a big part of my summer routine and my experience. I’ve enjoyed it, but other than that, I don’t how that will be affected, if at all,” he said.
The Warriors have long voiced their displeasure with Trump’s administration.
Within the past three years, they have criticized Trump for his divisive rhetoric, his profane comments about NFL players who protest racial inequality during the national anthem, his decision to pull the team’s invitation to celebrate its NBA title at the White House, his stance on gun reform and much more.
“I watch the way that Kerr and Popovich and some of the others were pandering to China, and yet to our own country, it’s like they don’t respect it,” Trump said Wednesday. “It’s like they don’t respect it. I said, ‘What a difference — isn’t it sad?’ It’s very sad. To me, it’s very sad.”
Kerr finished speaking with reporters Wednesday roughly 10 minutes before Trump mocked him at that White House news conference. He’ll next be available to media Thursday evening ahead of the Warriors’ home preseason game against Minnesota.
By then, odds are that Kerr will have done his research on the protests in Hong Kong, which were triggered by a proposed extradition law that would have allowed suspects to be sent to China to face trial. Activists viewed that as a threat to the legal rights that Hong Kong residents have under the “one country, two systems” framework. Staff writer Rusty Simmons contributed to
this article.