Kim Jong-un would decide the type of game they’d play. Not Steve Kerr.
It could be H-O-R-S-E, perhaps a game of one-on-one. A dunk contest didn’t seem likely. The game would take place in a North Korean gym, with Kerr escorted by two United States foreign policy advisers. Kim would attend with whomever he pleased. The game would be intended to improve relations between the U.S. and Kim, North Korea’s new supreme leader, who would get to meet one of his heroes and maybe gain a positive first impression of Barack Obama’s administration.
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At least that’s how Marcus Noland explained it to Obama in the Oval Office in May 2012.
Obama was deep into his first term as president and running for re-election. Kim had stepped into power about six months earlier, after his father, Kim Jong-il’s, death, and the U.S. government was trying to figure out a way to approach relations with him. No known American had met with him since he assumed power, and there wasn’t much known about him. That led Noland, an economist who studied North Korea and whom Obama had summoned for advice, to suggest an outside-the-box idea based on one of the few pieces of concrete intel the country had: Kim was a Bulls fan.
“We have to work with what we’ve got,” Noland told Obama in that meeting. “If this guy is really as big of a Chicago Bulls fan as we hear, let’s work with that, because we have nothing else to go on.”
Long before his meeting with Obama, Noland went to college at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where he crossed paths with Kerr’s older brother, John. He knew the Kerrs had grown up in Lebanon, where their late father, Malcolm, was president of the American University of Beirut. Kerr had lived in some of the more complicated parts of the world, which — along with his three titles with Chicago — made him the perfect candidate for this unique diplomatic mission.
Noland suggested sending Kerr, then a TNT broadcaster, to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, to play basketball with Kim. He’d be joined by Syd Seiler and Danny Russel, two members of Obama’s National Security Council who also specialized in North Korean affairs. If Kim wanted to talk business, Kerr could step aside and let them handle it. If Kim wanted to shoot hoops with Kerr, at least American officials could get a feel for him and his people. Noland played into Obama’s basketball fandom and asked who else possessed both the political and schematic X’s and O’s.
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The conversation drifted toward the dynastic Bulls. There was Michael Jordan, who once quipped “Republicans buy sneakers, too,” though Jordan later said he never considered himself a political person. There was Dennis Rodman, the hard-partying rebounder whose nightlife never really slowed down in his post-playing career. But the choice, at least to Noland, seemed obvious.
“If you think about that roster, who on that roster has international perspective?” Noland asked Obama.
As Noland gave his pitch, Obama’s face betrayed nothing. He nodded and gave the occasional “mm-hmm,” but didn’t look at Noland as if he was crazy. That job belonged to Seiler and Russel. “Sid and Danny are looking at me and turning white,” Noland recalled to The Athletic. Obama’s advisers reminded Noland of their political playbook and how radical his idea was. They were conventional foreign policy thinkers, and Noland’s idea was … unconventional, to say the least. But Noland thought the situation called for some unorthodox thinking and didn’t believe old-fashioned politics would go very far.
Noland left the White House that day without any verdict on his proposal and never heard from Obama’s cabinet about it again. His idea died in the Oval Office. Two years later, in May 2014, Kerr left his broadcasting gig and became the Golden State Warriors coach, leading the team to a championship in his first season. That December, “The Interview,” starring Seth Rogan and James Franco, hit theaters. In the film, the two travel to North Korea to interview Kim. On their first day meeting him, they play basketball together.
Hollywood, at least, seemed to think Noland’s idea was reasonable.
Fast forward to Dec. 14. In a random hallway deep in the bowels of Madison Square Garden, Kerr learned about Noland’s idea for the first time. Hours before Stephen Curry became the NBA’s 3-point king, Kerr was shown a copy of “The Great Successor,” a book about Kim by former Washington Post Asia correspondent Anna Fifield, which details Noland’s meeting. The passage in which Kerr is mentioned was read to him. Kerr processed the realization with laughter.
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Kerr met Obama in February 2016, when the Warriors visited the White House to celebrate their 2015 NBA title. Obama did not mention to Kerr that he once was suggested for a cameo appearance in his cabinet. The two golfed at Pebble Beach this past June and once again, Obama passed on the chance to tell Kerr. The Warriors coach said he plans to ask Obama about Noland’s proposal the next time they see each other.
But in the meantime, naturally, Kerr had questions.
The room was full of laughs when the champion Warriors visited the White House in 2016. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)
“So, was this like a clandestine thing?” he asked.
It doesn’t sound like it.
“I’ve never heard that before,” Kerr said. “I had no knowledge of that story. So that’s … I’m surprised.”
He was then told Noland went to college with his brother, which helped lead to his candidacy for the mission.
“Oh my god,” Kerr said. “That’s hilarious.”
So if Noland’s idea had gotten further, could Kerr have been talked into such a mission?
“No. No way …” Kerr said. “Unless President Obama himself asked me to do it. If he had asked me to do it, I would have done it.”
Noland said it would have taken exactly that — a direct order by Obama to his advisers — to get his idea into action. Given how far Noland’s plan was from the by-the-book philosophies of Obama’s circle, the president would have had to strongly believe in it, advisers be damned, to reach out to Kerr.
In an alternate universe, Kerr could have met the North Korean leader. As it turned out, a former Bulls player did indeed fill that role, albeit without government approval. Rodman became the first known U.S. citizen to meet Kim since he assumed power when he made his first of three trips to Pyongyang in 2013. Rodman’s first trip occurred in February 2013, and Kerr said he remembers watching it on TV and seeing all the blowback The Worm got for his rogue trip.
Nearly 10 years later, Kim remains a man who has few concrete details tied to him, and Rodman remains … well, Rodman. The former forward was criticized for taking the trip and for his handling of the backlash, going on national TV years later while intoxicated to defend another trip. Meanwhile, Kerr has been outspoken about numerous political issues while coaching the Warriors and has seen his profile rise. He recently got a new job with foreign implications, though not in government. On Monday, he was named the next coach for Team USA basketball. Noland remains in Washington in the private sector and can’t help but wonder what could have been.
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“If there’s anybody on that team who kind of has a cosmopolitan world experience view it would be Steve Kerr. So I ran with it. And it didn’t go anywhere and we got Dennis Rodman…” Noland said. “I think history has vindicated me.”
Had Obama green-lighted the mission, Noland envisioned Kerr knocking down a few shots to remind Kim “who’s boss.” Kerr said there is no way he’d have purposely lost unless Obama advised him to. From what he’s heard about North Korea’s ruling family, the true result of the game likely would never have reached the public anyway. He referenced the legend of Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, allegedly shooting a 34 — that’s 38-under par — at the 18-hole Pyongyang Golf Club in 1994.
“I’m going all out, because it doesn’t matter,” Kerr said. “Because the report in the international media would have been that he skunked me. I know (his father) made a birdie on every round of his golf score that one time. So he would have destroyed me in H-O-R-S-E, too.”
Kerr, now 56, is 6-foot-3, giving him roughly a foot on Kim, who is believed to be 5-foot-7, (though reports indicate he could be a few inches shorter and hides it by wearing elevator shoes). Kerr has a bad back and recently admitted his shooting range isn’t what it used to be. But it’s hard to see the career 48-percent shooter losing a shootout to the pudgy foreign leader. Would the cabinet have advised him to play like the legendary sharpshooter he was, or more to Kim’s level?
“Of course, throw the game,” Noland said. “Are you kidding me?”
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photos: Getty Images)