The NBA and Miami Heat are reviewing a clip circulating social media that shows Meyers Leonard uttering an anti-Semitic slur during a live stream on his Twitch channel, according to Ira Winderman of the Sun-Sentinel and Shams Charania of The Athletic. The clip was from a stream that aired Monday but was only posted to social media Tuesday. The Heat announced on Tuesday night that Leonard would be away from the team indefinitely as they cooperate with the league's investigation.
"The Miami Heat vehemently condemns the use of any form of hate speech," the team wrote in a statement.
Leonard was seen playing "Call of Duty: Warzone," and said "F-----g cowards, don't f-----g snipe at me you f-----g k--- b----." The context of the comment as it relates to his gameplay is not clear as the clip was taken from a stream that was not saved onto his Twitch profile -- streamers can leave older live streams up on their channel if they so choose to.
Leonard was streaming when the clip started circulating around Twitter. As Defector.com noted, the people in the chat began to be populated with viewers who brought up the slur. Moderators tried to delete messages and ban those users, but eventually had to switch over to a mode where users could only post an emote, Twitch's version of emojis. Shortly after the stream abruptly ended, he deleted recent tweets with references to his streams and all of his archived Twitch videos, as Kevin Draper of the New York Times pointed out.
On Tuesday afternoon, Leonard issued anapology for the incident.
NBA spokesman Mike Bass released the following statement after the clip was brought to the league's attention:
"We just became aware of the video and are in the process of gathering more information. The NBA unequivocally condemns all forms of hate speech."
Leonard has not played since Jan. 9 and is currently recovering from shoulder surgery.
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