Steve Kerr’s new New Yorker interview sounds a lot less like a man eager to lecture Americans and a lot more like a man trying to clean up a mess he’s spent years making. Throughout his coaching career in Golden State, Kerr has taken every opening to preach left-wing politics.
Suddenly, though, the Warriors coach sounds like someone who is trying to move more toward the middle. Or at least sound that way.
New Yorker staff writer Charles Bethea had a lengthy, and revealing, sit-down with Kerr. It’s not revealing because Bethea is an objective journalist who desired to seek truth. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Bethea doesn’t even try to hide his own left-wing bias. He opens the piece with a glowing affection toward Kerr before making his position on the longtime coach crystal clear. He writes that Kerr has been “refreshingly outspoken” throughout his career. Does anyone think Bethea would describe a conservative coach or athlete as “refreshingly outspoken”? Of course not.
But the writer took it a step further, 2022 Uvalde comments “informed and impassioned advocacy.” It’s always “informed and impassioned advocacy” when the writer agrees. If he disagrees, then it’s “dangerous misinformation” or “bigotry” or some other word-of-the-day from the progressive rhetoric dictionary.
And the bias didn’t stop at the introduction. Even Bethea’s questions were designed to let Kerr know he was speaking with an ally, not an objective journalist (let alone an adversary). But, perhaps against his own intentions, Bethea’s bias exposed the most interesting part of the interview.
When comes up, Bethea doesn’t frame the issue as hypocrisy. He says President relished what he “perceived to be hypocrisy” from Kerr and the NBA. Sure, the “perceived hypocrisy” of constantly lecturing about social justice while keeping quiet about China’s human rights violations to keep cashing checks from the Communist regime. How could anyone perceive that as “hypocritical”?
Even when The New Yorker gets to New Yorker gets to one of the clearest examples of the normally loose-lipped Kerr going silent when the league’s business interests were involved, it still can’t resist softening the premise for him.
But even speaking to a friendly interviewer, Kerr sounds like a guy backing off. He says he’s learned he needs to be better about “representing our organization” without getting too personal. He says he regrets calling Donald Trump a “buffoon.” He says it’s better to focus on policy and values than personal insults. And then he does something even more telling. He admits his old Hong Kong answer was “really weak,” says “Yeah. I was wrong,” and acknowledges he was trying to “walk the company line” and not make the NBA mad.
Bethea didn’t follow up on this answer at all, by the way. Instead, he pivoted right to praising Kerr for his Uvalde stance. Modern journalism, right?
There’s some important context here. Recent reporting from NBA reporters Marc Spears and Nick Friedell suggested Kerr’s constant political commentary had created internal frustration inside the Warriors. Spears said he’d heard Kerr may have been “stifled a little bit.” Friedell reported that league and team sources said Kerr’s desire to speak candidly on social and political issues had, at times, caused internal frustration. That’s interesting coming from an NBA franchise in an overtly left-wing sports league.
And we’ve seen this exact pattern from Kerr before.
Back in January, after the Renee Good shooting in Minn
