Gilbert Arenas has received a lot of flak recently because of his insensitive comments about South Sudan and its players. After Team USA played an exhibition game against them (which the USA won by 1 point), Arenas went a little too far while talking about the South Sudanese contingent on his show.
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Amidst the backlash, the former NBA star addressed the racist and xenophobic allegations against him on a recent episode of Gil’s Arena. The three-time All-Star claimed that his comments had been taken out of context because all he was doing at the time was showing support for his country.
He explained that he didn’t have malice in his heart while making those statements. It was just his way of supporting his team. Arenas also brought in the ‘us vs them’ argument to make his point. He said, “One, I’m a true fan, that means it’s my team vs yours and f**k yours…Two, now it’s USA, so, its USA vs everybody else, so, f**k everybody else.”
Arenas claimed that when he saw American reporters assess the standings of other teams against Team USA and give them the edge over the home team, he felt that that was a disservice to Team USA. He added, “I’m sorry, I can’t stand for that. It’s us vs them, you’re an American reporter. I don’t give a f**k what your feelings is.”
The former NBA star also claimed that one of the biggest reasons why so many people are hoping to see Team USA lose is because of their hatred for LeBron James, “Since LeBron is on the team, it seems like, whoever hates LeBron…they want to see America lose so they can say, ‘He’s not the GOAT.”
However, some of Arenas’ remarks were really worthy of raising eyebrows.
The former NBA star said, “They don’t even have shoes. They get their shoes from America…They have to use the shoes that we have extra, leftover shoes…They don’t even have basketball rims.”
It does seem like Arenas has some accountability in this situation because the things he said about South Sudan were objectively derogatory. In addition to that, it had little to do with him supporting Team USA or the American people.
Even Team USA player Joel Embiid spoke out against Arenas’ comments.
Joel Embiid spoke out against Gilbert Arenas
When Embiid was recently made aware of what Arenas had to say about the South Sudan team, the 76ers star said that he won’t condone something so disrespectful said against an African team.
He said, “I don’t condone it. I’m African, first and foremost. I might be playing for Team USA but I’m Cameroonian first and foremost… If it [the comments] was that negative, it’s just disappointing because you see what African basketball has done for us to be in this position to be able to make some sort of impact.”
Embiid stated that the African continent has given a lot to the sport of basketball and even outside of the contribution, no one deserves to be belittled like that.
