With his frail-looking (6'3", 181-pound) frame, freckled face and milky skin, Kerr can walk onto any playground in the country with no chance of being picked first. Yet two nights after his escapade with Rodman, he's at the Continental Airlines Arena defending New Jersey Nets rookie guard Kerry Kittles in crunch time. All over America, whenever quicker, stronger gym rats see Kerr in action, they must wonder, How can that guy be out there instead of me?
That's a question even Kerr concedes is valid. It is why, he says, "I don't have any fans my age. Almost all of my fans are either grandmothers who think I look like their grandsons or eight-year-old boys, who can relate to me."
Even so, Kerr has carved out a niche as one of the NBA's best long-range shooters; his career percentage from behind the three-point line, .475 through Sunday, is the best in league history. (For punctuation, this year he won the Long Distance Shootout during All-Star weekend.) His signature shooting style--quick jump, arm and fingers fully extended, hair flying--is one born of a million practice shots. The Houston Rockets' Charles Barkley recently said that if he had to pick one player to sink a game-winning shot, it would be Kerr. And Kerr's reaction? "I thought he was joking." (Edit: article came out two months before the 1997 NBA finals)
But Kerr couldn't have lasted nine years in the NBA--and become a key (though, at $750,000 this season, relatively low-paid) role player on the league's best team--without displaying other attributes. He rarely turns the ball over, and, says Jackson, "he's a real conscious person. His awareness level is high, and he doesn't get easily rattled." At both ends of the floor Kerr is as active as a mouse in a maze. Though he lacks quickness and would figure to be a defensive liability, he makes bigger, stronger, quicker players at least work for their points.