Steve Kerr would like us to stop covering LaVar Ball and Donald Trump, which will never happen

As long as you’re wishing for things, Steve Kerr, maybe ask for world peace. Or a pony.

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Before the Golden State Warriors’ Sunday victory over the Brooklyn Nets, Kerr held court with reporters in his customary pre-game scrum. One topic lobbed at the coach: the recent back-and-forth between President Donald Trump and LaVar Ball, two bombastic public figures on whom Kerr has commented in the past.

Asked for his thoughts, Kerr shook his head and, like many of the rest of us, sort of sighed his way through the whole damn thing.

“Modern life,” he said. “Two people seeking attention and they’re both getting it, and so, I’m sure both guys are really happy.”

And then, Kerr made his wish to the assembled reporters.

“You know what would help?” he asked. “If all of you just stopped covering both of them. Is that possible? You could probably stop covering LaVar. I don’t think you could stop covering the president. I don’t think that’ll work. It would be nice for all of us if both of them would just be quiet. Wouldn’t that be great?”

For sure. Of course it would! “Loud man says ludicrous thing” ranks among my least favorite kinds of blog post to write.

The stakes are significantly lower when it’s LaVar telling everybody he could totally take Michael Jordan 1-on-1 than when the president of the United States does or says, well, anything. But the general point holds true. Outside the confines of what he might offer about how his oldest son, Lonzo Ball, is performing as the point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers, I don’t particularly like having to pay attention to anything LaVar Ball is saying or doing, either.

I do have to, though. I have to because many, many, many people seem to want to pay attention to what LaVar Ball says and does. Even if — especially if — it seems outlandish.

You might say you don’t. Awesome! I commend you, and hope you have a wonderful life free of ever reading anything about LaVar Ball. But a lot of people do. And when you cover the NBA, and when a lot of people care about the things said and done by someone at least tangentially related to the NBA, to the point where they want to watch or read or listen to those things … well, then, at some point, you might have to dive into the business of writing about LaVar Ball, because that is the way these things work.

Many wonderful things are being tried with subscription-based services and direct-patronage support of content producers, but in the mainstream, eyeballs still drive this industry, and LaVar Ball has proven himself exceptionally adept at drawing those eyeballs. And now, through the regrettable actions of his teenage middle son — actions for which he apologized and took accountability, displaying commendable maturity for a young man who made an error — he found himself in position for the attention-grab of a lifetime. I’ll leave it to my colleague Jeff Eisenberg, who’s written well on the topic and who’s got more experience in dealing with this particular LaVar conundrum, to break it down:

LaVar’s going to be on CNN tonight to talk about all of it. I suspect Coach Kerr won’t be watching. I won’t, either; there are 11 games tonight, and I’ll be looking to write stuff about actual basketball things stemming from one or more of them. I bet a lot of other people will be tuning in, though. So it goes.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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