Steve Kerr, the naturally quick-witted and light-hearted leader of the Golden State Warriors, isn't afraid to mince words when the topic of Donald Trump's presidency comes into play. His customary playful attitude and sarcastic quips turn to blatant seriousness.
That rhetoric came to a head Sunday night, and it wasn't the first time. While addressing reporters after Golden State's victory over the Portland Trailblazers, Kerr lambasted Trump's travel ban, an executive order that bans citizens of seven majority Muslim countries from entering the United States.
"I think it's shocking," he said. "I think it's a horrible idea. I feel for all the people who are affected. Families are being torn apart and I worry in the big picture what this means to the security of the world."
Kerr is no stranger to foreign affairs. The Lebanon-born coach's father, Malcom Kerr, was assassinated in 1984 while he was the American University president in Beirut.
"As someone whose family member was a victim of terrorism, having lost my father, if we're trying to combat terrorism by banishing people from coming to this country, by really going against the principals of what our country's about and creating fear, it's the wrong way to go about it," Steve Kerr said. "If anything, we could be breeding anger and terror."
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Sunday's presidential commentary comes on the heels on various "rants" spewed by Golden State's leader on the sidelines. One week after Trump assumed the seat in the White House, Kerr called out the president's first official actions as "scary and disconcerting."
Days after the November election, a stunned Kerr felt "disgusted and disappointed" by the decision voiced by American voters.
"It's tough when you want there to be some respect and dignity," Kerr said in November. "There hasn't been any. And then you walk into a room with your daughter and your wife who have basically been insulted by his comments and they're distraught. Then you walk in and see the faces of your players, most of them who have been insulted directly as minorities, it's sort of shocking. It really is."
Then again, Kerr wasn't necessarily surprised by the election results.
"Maybe we should have seen it coming over the last 10 years," he said in November. "You look at society, you look at what's popular. People are getting paid millions of dollars to scream at each other, whether its in sports or politics or entertainment. I guess it was only a matter of time before it spilled into politics. Then, all of a sudden, you're faced with the reality that the man who is going to lead you has routinely used racist, misogynist, insulting words. That's a tough one."
Press conferences have been Kerr's primary method of taking aim at Trump, but social media has given the coach of the NBA's best team another figurative sword. Kerr recently retweeted nearly a dozen people questioning and criticizing the Trump's travel ban.
One tweet, however, among the apparent condemnations appeared to applaud the president for tackling tax code corruption.
