When the time is right — perhaps when his new contract expires — we should guide Steve Kerr to this new calling. Or, if necessary, drag him to it.
Sometimes you need to nudge people to their ultimate destiny, the true calling that awaits them.
I’m talking about Steve Kerr.
I know what you’re thinking. Steve Kerr? The nine-time NBA champion (five as a player, four as a head coach)? The most accurate 3-point shooter in NBA history and one of its best coaches? Steve Kerr, the guy who just signed a two-year, $35 million contract extension with the Golden State Warriors that makes him the highest-paid NBA coach in history. Hasn’t he kind of already found his calling and — not unlike his 17-foot clincher in the 1997 NBA Finals — nailed it?
Yes, him.
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And no, he hasn’t.
Although Kerr has achieved greatness in basketball, I believe he’s capable of much more in another arena: leadership in public affairs. When the time is right — perhaps when his new contract expires — we all should guide him to this new calling. Or, if necessary, drag him to it.
Let me tell you why.
For those unfamiliar with Kerr, it’s important to note that his passions transcend basketball. Over the years, he’s tapped into his remarkable ability to communicate and relate in ways that have added credibility and humanity to some of the most important topics we face in the United States — whether it’s gun violence, the health of our democracy, the nuances of international relations or the dignity required of anyone holding elected office.
To understand Kerr, it helps to consider the outward-facing mindset of his family. It goes back at least several generations when his grandparents met in Turkey while rescuing Armenian women and orphans after the 1915 Armenian genocide. Kerr himself spent a large portion of his early life in the Middle East, including Beirut, where his father was a Lebanese-born American academic specializing in the Middle East until he was gunned down in 1984.
After his father’s murder, then-President Ronald Reagan invited the Kerr family to the Oval Office to thank them for making the ultimate sacrifice in their effort to expand American values around the world. During that 30-minute visit, Kerr said, there was “no regard” for where anyone sat on the political spectrum — they were just Americans who loved their country and believed in service.
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Mindsets have changed quite a bit since then. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump called Kerr a “scared little boy” for declining to comment on the NBA’s business in China.
“All I can think of is the contrast of what has happened” since that first visit to the White House, Kerr said in response. “Wow, has the office sunken low. So my hope is that we can find a mature unifier from either party to sit in that chair and try to restore some dignity to the Oval Office. And I think it will happen.”
Then Kerr looked at his interviewers and asked, “Now, do you want to talk about pick-and-roll coverage?”
That’s a great question, specifically when it comes to Kerr. And I think our answer should be, OK, but not for much longer.
His pick-and-roll joke was a self-deprecating reminder of Kerr’s remarkable range, whether as a former player, a TV analyst, a coach or a semi-reluctant statesman. With Kerr’s original passion being basketball, his father’s murder perhaps added dimension and a mark of responsibility to how he shows up. Over the years, Kerr has bestowed passionate resolution to the debate around gun violence and what we should do about it.
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“I don’t want people to feel what my family felt when my father was killed,” he once said. “I know what it feels like to have a family member ended by a bullet.”
“The world is a complex place, and there is more gray than black and white,” Kerr said in 2019. “Right now, you’re either ‘good’ or ‘evil.’ ”
Five years later, we’re still stuck in an us-versus-them nightmare, and we still have too many leaders who struggle to see beyond themselves.
Which is why I daydream about June 2026.
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This is when Kerr’s contract will expire and teams will be preparing for the NBA draft. I suggest this could be the perfect opportunity for all of us to do our own “drafting” of sorts when we ask Kerr to take his extensive experience in rising above the egos, tantrums and eccentricities of the NBA and apply it to public affairs, where such traits are in desperate need of counterbalance.
Of course, the actual mechanics of “drafting” Kerr would need to be kinked out. Eminent domain doesn’t apply to people (at least not in the U.S.), and I realize I’ve left out the pesky detail of convincing Kerr to do any of this.
Can someone here take those action items?
In the meantime, I’ll return to daydreaming about a time when we elevate reluctant leaders, humble people whose passions, capabilities and decency (versus their sense of self) necessitate their service.
So, I am sorry to do this to you, Steve, but we need you.
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Greg Bardsley is a novelist, columnist and veteran of Silicon Valley.
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