A little coachspeak

I don't know if Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr has any political aspirations, or if hygiene is too much his thing for him to start swimming laps in that cesspool. I do know he has some distinct advantages over the mad king who stumps around the White House these days, raving and holding conversations with Dick Nixon's portrait probably, and flinging playground taunts around the twitterverse.

Like, for instance, calling Steve Kerr out by name as a "scared little boy" for not commenting about the way China has humiliated Kerr's employer this week.

(The latest: The Chinese gummint shut down media access to the NBA teams playing in China, even canceling NBA commissioner Adam Silver's scheduled news conference. Silver and the NBA's China delegation, of course, acquiesced without a peep.)

In any event, Kerr showed up on the mad king's Radar O' Crazy because Kerr has been critical of his policies in the past, and also, like all the mad king's targets, because he's everything the mad king isn't. Which is to say, intelligent, articulate, sane and, most especially, a grownup.

Which is why Kerr's response to Our Only Available President's child-like insult sounded remarkably the way a grownup would talk about, well, a child. In other words, with humor and mild amusement and a grownup's well-little-Donny-will-grow-out-of-this-eventually perspective.

First he joked that if he'd been thinking, he'd have shown up for his presser on a tricycle, wearing a beanie with a propeller, in homage to OOAP's "little boy" comment. Then he said how weird it was to get called out by name by the President of the United States, while understanding exactly what was going on with that.

"You stop and you think, this is just every day," Kerr said. "This is just another day. I was the shiny object yesterday. There was another one today; there will be a new one tomorrow. And the circus will go on. It's just strange, but it happened."

Then he said this, and every word rang with the insight of a fully-realized adult:

"I was thinking about my various visits to the White House," Kerr said. "I've lived a privileged life and met, I think, the past five previous presidents prior to President Trump. The first one was in 1984, and Ronald Reagan was president. He invited my mom and me, six months after my dad [Malcolm] was killed in a terrorist attack. President Reagan and Vice President [George H.W.] Bush invited us into the Oval Office, spent about half an hour with us thanking us for my dad's service -- he was in education. Thanking us for my dad's commitment to American values in the Middle East. Trying to promote peace in the Middle East.

"And all I could think of last night was the contrast of what has happened in 35 years. There was no regard for whose side you were on politically. Political party, anything like that. It was just, you were an American. The office held such dignity and respect. Both from the people who were visiting and especially the people who sat inside it. It's just sad it's come crashing down. That we are now living this.

"I realize the horse was out of the barn a long time on this. But for me personally, this was my experience with, wow, has the office sunken low. 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 again, and I think it will happen."

I hope he's right.

And part of me wishes it were him.