Returns Meyers Leonard, the last cursed in the NBA. After two years without playingthe 2.16 meter center has just signed a 10-day contract with the Bucks, who had been analyzing the progression of the 30-year-old player for some time and who organized a private training session with him at the end of February. Now want to see him in action for the first time since January 9, 2021 and, if he convinces them, they could take an experienced player who could help them in the playoffs with his size and good hand.
Leonard’s prolonged absence from the NBA courts It has to do with physical problems. During this time she has suffered an injury that has affected the nerves in his right leg and had to be operated on a shoulder. But during his ‘disappearance’ He also starred in a scandal with anti-Semitic overtones which cost him the failure of the League, a sanction and the fear of never playing again in a competition in which many of the team owners are of Jewish origin.
An anti-Semitic insult during a game of a video game
On March 10, 2022, the pivot was doing a Twitch live in which he played the well-known video game ‘Call of duty’. In the role of him, there was a moment in which he shouted: “Fucking cowards! Don’t shoot me, fucking kike!” That last term is a derogatory way of referring to Jews.. More than 50,000 people listened to it live and many more did so later when the video began to circulate on social networks. Since then, Leonard became a pest for the NBA.
Meyers Leonard dunks in a game with the Heat.
The player was already injured. It was not an obstacle for The NBA fined him $50,000 and suspended him the next day. to utter the anti-Semitic slur. A week later, his team, the Heat, they transferred him. The owner is Micky Arison, born in Tel Aviv and of Jewish origin. Leonard ended up in the Thunder, who cut him on March 25.
Threats of death
The pivot showed immediate regret. He excused himself saying that he did not know the meaning of the term that he had pronounced, although “ignorance about its history and how offensive it is to the Jewish community is by no means an excuse. I was wrong.” Leonard lost several endorsements for his insult and Twitch, where he had more than 70,000 followers, closed his account for a week. He began to receive death threats and his partner harassed him on social networks saying that they would rape her and also kill her..
Ignorance about its history and how offensive it is to the Jewish community is by no means an excuse. I made a mistake
After the words asking for forgiveness, the acts began. The player tried to make peace with the Jewish community. Two days after uttering the derogatory word, contacted a Florida-based rabbi. His first talk lasted seven hours.. “I saw him cry. His tears were real, sincere. He didn’t know anything about Judaism,” said the Hebrew teacher, with whom he has performed charities as a sign of repentance, in addition to visit the Holocaust Museum to try to understand the pain that his insult causes to the Jews. Also He has collaborated with the Jewish community, going to give talks at schools and associations and doing basketball activities with the young
He did not kneel during the anthem in support of ‘Black Lives Matter’
It had not been the first controversy that Leonard had starred in the NBA. During the bubble that was organized in Orlando to end the COVID season, he was one of the few who refused to kneel when the American anthem was played. “I support ‘Black Lives Matter’I am well aware of what is happening, but my patriotism runs deep”he said then. His brother was with the Marines in Afghanistan..
Meyers Leonard stands listening to the United States anthem before an NBA game in the Orlando bubble.
Now, Hand in hand with the Bucks and after having cleared his name, Leonard has a new opportunity after overcoming physical problems and a scandal that could well have ended his career. He dreamed of a return to the NBA and there you have it. He arrived in 2012 drafted by the Blazers to go later to the Heat accumulating a total of 447 games with averages of 5.6 points and 3.9 rebounds.
