The NBA fined Miami Heat center Meyers Leonard $50,000 and suspended him from the team facility and all its activities for one week on Thursday after he used an anti-Semitic slur during a video game livestream earlier this week.
Leonard will also be required to take part in a cultural diversity program, the league said.
“Meyers Leonard’s comment was inexcusable and hurtful and such an offensive term has no place in the NBA or in our society,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. “Yesterday, he spoke to representatives of the Anti-Defamation League to better understand the impact of his words and we accept that he is genuinely remorseful. We have further communicated to Meyers that derogatory comments like this will not be tolerated and that he will be expected to uphold the core values of our league — equality, tolerance, inclusion and respect — at all times moving forward.”
In a video that surfaced Tuesday on social media, Leonard can be heard saying: “F—ing cowards; don’t f—ing snipe me, you f—ing k— b—-.”
Leonard later apologized in an Instagram post.
The Heat had previously said that Leonard would be away from the organization indefinitely while the NBA conducts its investigation.
“He said something that was extremely distasteful and hurtful,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said Wednesday. “And we’re left with the aftermath of that.”
