As the Miami Heat return this week from the All-Star break, the team should expect to answer for the conduct of injured center Meyers Leonard.
Leonard, who is out for the remainder of the season with a shoulder injury and hasn’t appeared in an NBA game since January, was recorded saying an anti-Semitic slur during a Twitch stream of Call of Duty on Tuesday.
Leonard — pictured in the box on the left in his video stream with the bleached hair — could be seen saying the slur while trash-talking other players on the stream.
Warning: The video contains NSFW language.
Meyers Leonard says racial slurs while playing CoD pic.twitter.com/WHwUnbV0pR
— Main Team (@MainTeamSports) March 9, 2021
During the NBA’s restart in the Orlando bubble, Leonard was the lone Heat player to stand during the national anthem. Though protests during the anthem are not about the military, Leonard defended it at the time as him “supporting the military” rather than acting out of opposition for the Black Lives Matter movement.
He said in August:
“Some of the conversations I’ve had over the past three days, quite literally, have been the most difficult,” Leonard told The Associated Press prior to the game. “I am with the Black Lives Matter movement and I love and support the military and my brother and the people who have fought to defend our rights in this country.”
Leonard has yet to offer his response to the video, but he did receive a phone call during his Tuesday Twitch stream and left the game shortly after that call.
welp pic.twitter.com/Wtz5dSuRCP
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) March 9, 2021
For The Win has reached out to the Miami Heat and will update with their response.
