President withdraws White House invitation to Warriors
OAKLAND, Calif. (KTVU) - President Trump is at odds with members of the NBA Champion, Golden State Warriors.
The president went on Twitter Saturday morning to announce that he is withdrawing a White House invitation to the Warriors.
He accused Warriors star, Stephen Curry of "hesitating," and thus the "invitation is withdrawn!"
Warriors players, along with head coach Steve Kerr, had indicated they were opposed to going to the Washington, D.C. and meeting with President Trump, due to some of his conservative agenda.
Three time champion LeBron James got wind of the announcement and took to Twitter to publicly call the president a "bum" before recognizing how visiting the White House used to be a great honor.
Curry, a two-time NBA Most Valuable Player, addressed the issue during the Warriors annual media day on Friday. He said visiting President Trump would be a tacit approval of the administration and the President's policies.
"And by acting, or not going, hopefully that will inspire some change when it comes to what we tolerate in this country and what is accepted and what is we turn a blind eye to."
NBA Finals MVP, Kevin Durant, also said he would not go. In an interview in August, Durant said, "I don't respect who's in office right now."
While Kerr has spoken out against President Trump, the Warriors head coach also wanted the entire team to vote and decide together, whether they would go to the White House.
The organization released a statement in which they issued a nod to Curry's statement as representing their ideal that "there is nothing more American than our citizens having the right to express themselves freely on matters important to them."
While we intended to meet as a team at the first opportunity we had this morning to collaboratively discuss a potential visit to the White House, we accept that President Trump has made it clear that we are not invited. We believe there is nothing more American than our citizens having the right to express themselves freely on matters important to them. We’re disappointed that we did not have an opportunity during this process to share our views or have open dialogue on issues impacting our communities that we felt would be important to raise.
In lieu of a visit to the White House, we have decided that we’ll constructively use our trip to the nation’s capital in February to celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion — the values that we embrace as an organization.
The Warriors are scheduled to be in Washington, D.C. to play against the Wizards on February 28.
In June, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and East Bay Congresswoman Barbara Lee sent the Warriors a blanket invitation to visit Capitol Hill, at anytime their schedule allowed.
The Warriors visited then President Obama in February 2016, after winning the 2015 NBA Championship.