Separate investigations into his alleged workplace misconduct confirmed that Robert Sarver repeated the n-word on multiple occasions. During his time with the Phoenix Suns, though, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr maintains he never saw any behavior from the disgraced owner that could he construed as racist. 

Doubling down on his statement to ESPN’s Baxter Holmes in November of last year, Kerr said on Wednesday he wasn’t privy to “anything that suggested racism” in Sarver’s conduct.

“I stand by what I said because that was my experience – I wouldn’t make that up,” he told Alex Simon of Bay Area News Group. “What I witnessed was a guy who was, at times, inappropriate and whose sense of humor was sometimes over the top, but never anything that suggested racism.”

Kerr also confirmed the findings of ESPN’s initial reporting and the NBA’s subsequent outside investigation that Sarver engaged in inappropriate behavior. Like the report from law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz, though, he allowed for the possibility that Sarver’s conduct didn’t stem from any real bias he holds toward women or people of color.