NBA player who shouted antisemitic slur traded — and will not be playing

Meyers Leonard of the Miami Heat By Getty Images

By Benyamin Cohen March 18, 2021

In a move that will take him off the court for awhile, the Miami Heat has traded Meyers Leonard, the NBA star who was recently caught using an antisemitic slur while livestreaming a video game.

The Heat traded Meyers, a 29-year-old power forward, to the Oklahoma City Thunder, but in a somewhat unusual move, the Thunder said it plans to sideline him. “Leonard will not be reporting to Oklahoma City and will not be an active member of the organization,” the team said in a statement on Wednesday.

Instead, Leonard was to be part of a package deal: The Miami Heat also gave the Thunder their second-round pick in the 2027 draft. As part of the deal, forward Trevor Ariza went from Oklahoma to Miami.

Leonard found himself embroiled in controversy earlier this month after he blurted out a string of expletives – including “you f—-ing kike bitch” – while he was playing the video game “Call of Duty,” which he was broadcasting for the general public on the platform Twitch.

The Anti-Defamation League and other groups called for the Miami Heat to take action. NFL star Julian Edelman, one of the most prominent Jewish professional athletes in America, wrote an open letter to Leonard inviting him to a Shabbat dinner in Miami. The invitation is presumably still open, but will perhaps now take place in a different city.

Benyamin Cohen is news director at the Forward. He is the author of two books, My Jesus Year and The Einstein Effect, and has written for The New York Times and The Washington Post. He lives with his wife in West Virginia with their three dogs, a cat and a flock of chickens known as the Co-Hens.

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