The Warriors Didn’t Visit the White House Just to Celebrate. They Went to Discuss Gun Violence.

His Warriors held a three-games-to-nothing lead over the Mavericks in the Western Conference finals. A trip back to the Finals was in sight. But Stephen Curry had been pressed into heavy minutes to get there. They’d just lost a key defender to injury. And the Mavericks, powered by the precocious Luka Dončić, were young, feisty and relentless.

The only thing on Kerr’s mind, as he moved through his morning routine, was how to squeeze out one more win. Game 4 was that night, in Dallas.

Then came the phone call. The voice on the other end was trembling, anguished, angry. Kerr had been friends with Mike McBride, an Oakland-based pastor and community activist, for years. He’d never heard him like this.

“He was in tears, and he was just—he just sounded broken,” Kerr recalls.