Phelan M. Ebenhack / Associated Press
The NBA announced that Miami Heat center Meyers Leonard was suspended from team facilities and activities for one week and fined $ 50,000 for using an anti-Semitic interruption during a live stream of Twitch Monday.
In the release of the NBA Thursday, it is said that Leonard “will also have to participate in a cultural diversity program.”
In a video clip of the live stream posted on social media on Tuesday, Leonard played Call of Duty when he said: ‘F – king cowards; do not snip my f – king, ff king k – eb — h, “according to ESPNs Nick Friedell.
The 29-year-old Virginia native posted an apology on Instagram on Tuesday night:
FaZe Clan, an eSports organization that started a business relationship with Leonard after he started streaming on Twitch, confirm it was to cut a bond with the NBA player.
The Heat have announced that Leonard will “be off the team indefinitely” while the league investigates the matter:
“The NBA unequivocally condemns all forms of hate speech,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said after the league launched the investigation, per Friedell.
Leonard’s use of the solvent took place during a time when anti-Semitism was on the rise in the United States. The Anti-Defamation League report in 2019, anti-Semitic acts in the U.S. were at their highest since 1979, an increase of 12 percent over 2018. Anti-Semitic hate crimes also increased by 14 percent in 2019, and an FBI statistics report on hate crimes found that more than 60 percent of all religiously based hate crimes are directed at Jewish people, although they make up less than 2 percent of the country’s population.
Leonard has already been ruled out for the rest of the 2020-21 season after undergoing shoulder surgery in February. Miami has a team option on its contract for 2021-22.
The first round pick of 2012 joined the Heat in July 2019 as part of a four-team trade. He spent the first seven years of his NBA career with the Portland Trail Blazers.
He averaged 5.6 points and 3.9 rebounds in 447 career games.