Bucks’ sign Meyers Leonard on 10-day deal after anti-Semitic slur saw his NBA tenure end
Former Trail Blazer/Heat Center Meyers Leonard will return to the League after being signed by the Milwaukee Bucks and staying out 2 years thanks to an anti semitic controversy/leg injury
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Former Miami Heat F/C Meyers Leonard will be returning to the Association after being out of action for 23 months. The 7ft Center was suspended by the NBA after controversially using an Anti-Semitic slur during a Twitch video game stream in March 2021.
Meyers Leonard will sign a ten-day contract with the Milwaukee Bucks, as per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. He was recently seen working out with the LA Lakers on January 13. This will be Leonard’s first game since his suspension. Leonard was recovering from an injury at the time of his suspension and was banned by the NBA and Twitch for a week following his usage of a derogatory slur “kike”. The Miami Heat fined him $50,000 following the controversy.
Leonard was subsequently traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder with a future second round pick for Trevor Ariza a week following his suspension. The Thunder stated that Leonard would not be joining the team or participating in any basketball activities and that they had traded for him as a salary filler. Leonard was released by the Thunder on March 25. In April 2021, he underwent an ankle surgery and was soon found to have nerve damage within the bottom half of his right leg.
Related : Meyers Leonard breaks silence about the ANTISEMITIC controversy that got him suspended from the NBA
Meyers Leonard not the only player to face such a suspension
Meyers Leonard isn’t the only player to face a suspension for uttering an Anti Semitic slur. Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving is known for having a lot of unpopular and unconventional opinions. Irving caught the league’s attention after he tweeted a link to the movie Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America on October 27, 2022. The film, based on a 2015 book of the same title, contains many hateful and false claims about Jewish people, including the fact that the Holocaust did not happen. Irving initially spoke in his defence and identified himself to be an Omnist. But couple of days after the Tweet, Irving was suspended by the NBA and the Brooklyn Nets for 5 games without pay. Shortly after the suspension, Irving shared an apology via Instagram.
Leonard on the other hand was suspended for usage of the slur “Kike”, which is an ethnic slur for a Jewish person. A day after his comment, he apologized saying, “While I didn’t know what the word meant at the time, my ignorance about its history and how offensive it is to the Jewish community is absolutely not an excuse, and I was just wrong.” Leonard will make his debut for the Milwaukee Bucks shortly.
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Gerard Crispin
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