MIAMI — Life had been so good lately for Miami Heat player Meyers Leonard.
One month ago to the day he and wife Elle closed on a $7.8 million, near-7,000-square-foot home. They celebrated Valentine’s Day, and later in February, Meyers’ 29th birthday.
Leonard has been sidelined all but three games with a season-ending shoulder injury, but, hey, if the worst thing in your life is that somebody is paying you very well to not work, well, life is good.
It all ended for him this week in the dumbest of ways.
The end of his time with the Heat, surely — and of his NBA career, perhaps? — was broadcast on a livestream on Twitch. Heard by many, now known by most thanks to the metastasizing power of social media.
(I might suggest a basketball player out injured all season but livestreaming himself playing video games is a loser on optics alone. But Leonard had a far bigger problem at hand ...)
He was playing “Call of Duty: Warzone,” and when angered by his opponents’ actions, Leonard was heard saying: “F------ cowards, don’t f------ snipe me, you f------ k--- b----.”
That second-to-last K word is a well-known and strongly condemned slur against Jewish people, who hear it with the hurt and hate and anger a Black man might hear the N-word.
It was Tuesday when Leonard’s world blew up.
The Heat (with a substantial Jewish fan base, and owned by Micky Arison, born in Tel Aviv, Israel) immediately suspended Leonard indefinitely, saying it vehemently condemns the use of any form of hate speech, and adding, “To hear it from a Miami Heat player is especially disappointing and hurtful.”
The NBA is investigating. Three sponsors (Origin PC, SCUF Gaming and FaZe Clan Gaming) quickly dropped him.
Leonard, aware of what he had just stepped in, issued an Instagram mea culpa Tuesday night, saying, “I am deeply sorry for using an anti-Semitic slur during a livestream. While I didn’t know what the word meant at the time, my ignorance is absolutely not an excuse.”
Didn’t know what the word meant? So he threw out the word k--- just randomly? First time he had ever used it ... or probably not?
Short-term, no way Leonard ever plays again for this franchise. Miami has an option to re-sign him this offseason for roughly $10 million. That would have been doubtful in the best case, with him coming off a wasted year and being an ordinary 5.6-point career scorer. Now, zero chance. They should release him now.
Long-term, maybe there is a market in free agency for a 7-foot big on a certain team in a certain role. Or might have been. Before this.
The discussion worth having is whether we have seen an overreaction or an appropriate one.
Is this cancel culture at work? Should anyone be ostracized for one word, a single syllable, spoken? Is that fair?
“What if Jimmy Butler or Bam Adebayo said what Leonard did?” a friend asked me Tuesday.
“Ah, but they didn’t,” I replied.
Jimmy Johnson, the great football coach, always talks about how all players are not created equal. I recall his example: If star quarterback Troy Aikman falls asleep in the team meeting, you gently wake him. If the sixth-round, third-string guard falls asleep, he’s out the door.
It is a fair (though moot) question my friend posed. If stars Butler or Adebayo had done this, said this, there might have been the same condemnation, even a suspension, but the club surely would have found way around severing ties.
Leonard, a bit player, is not treated the same because, as Johnson suggested, in sports as in life, it isn’t always fair. With great talent comes benefit of doubt. Right or wrong, that simply is.
Last summer Leonard caused a stir because he was the only Heat player or coach to not kneel during the national anthem in a show of solidarity against unjustified police against Black people.
“I am a compassionate human being and truly love all people,” he said at the time.
That boast and the expletive “k---” do not co-exist.
Leonard made a mistake. Maybe just a simple, honest mistake, but a pretty bad one. Especially in context.
Anti-Semitism has risen sharply in the U.S. lately. The Anti-Defamation League reports the 2,017 such incidents in 2019 were the most since 1979. The FBI Hate Crimes Unit says 60% of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish people in its latest survey, though the U.S. Jewish population is only about 2%.
When that far-right mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in January, several images of anti-Semitism were seen, including a man wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” shirt.
It is in this broad, discouraging context that what Leonard said merits the condemnation it is getting.
Words matter. Free speech has its consequences. You cannot put the smoke back in a cigar, or take back words you regret saying.
Meyers Leonard said what he said.
Now society is saying, “You owe debts. We have come to collect.”
