The Golden State Warriors are, according to President Joe Biden, once again welcome in the White House.

Biden, alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, an Oakland, Calif., native, invited the Warriors back to celebrate the team’s 2022 NBA Championship, four years after the team’s most recent championship — and four years since the Warriors preemptively refused a post-championship visit to the White House under former President Donald Trump.

What You Need To Know

  • The Golden State Warriors celebrated their 2022 NBA championship at the White House with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday

  • The visit was the first since the Warriors won the 2015 NBA championship, and the first since the team preemptively declined an invitation to the Trump-era White House

  • The team honored Biden and Harris with personalized Warriors jerseys: #46 for Biden as the nation's 46th President; and #1 for Harris — the first female Vice President in the country's history

  • Head Coach Steve Kerr, along with players Klay Thompson and Moses Moody, also took part in a gun violence roundtable discussion on Tuesday, prior to the ceremonty

“I think we were here seven years ago for our first championship, so to have another opportunity to be here, it means the world to us,” Warriors star Stephen Curry said. “We want to continue to make you proud with everything we do.”

The Warriors, Biden said, play with a style reflective of America: in constant motion, celebrating both individual freedom and collective skill, playing with joy and vibrancy. The team and organization, under coach Steve Kerr, also has a history of social justice activism. Kerr’s life was scarred by gun violence in 1984 when his father, Malcolm, was assassinated in Lebanon.

In the decades since, Kerr has used his platform as an NBA executive and coach to address social problems, from organizing a protest against Arizona’s immigration laws, to emotionally speaking about the gun deaths of 21 people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last year.

“It’s fitting we continue this tradition to host, the day after Dr. King’s holiday,” Biden said. “Look at what this team does: speaking out loudly against racism, standing up for equality, encouraging people to vote, empowering children and their families to eat healthy, learn and play in safe places, rallying the country against gun violence.”

The visit, Biden noted, marked 60 years since the Boston Celtics became the first NBA championship team to visit the White House, then under President John F. Kennedy. A few months later, the leader of that team, Bill Russell, returned to Washington to observe Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Russell, an outspoken civil rights activist and one of the greatest players in basketball history, died last year at 88 years old.

Prior to the meeting with Biden and Harris, in which the team granted each of the pair with honorary team jerseys, Kerr and Curry spoke before reporters at the day’s press briefing. 

“This is a great reminder of how lucky we are to be Americans, to live in a country where we can chase our dreams,” Kerr said, adding that he, alongside Warriors players Klay Thompson and Moses Moody, took part in a gun violence roundtable discussion earlier in the day. “We learned about what this administration is doing to help create a safer environment in our country, something that’s very close to my heart.”