MIAMI — This was not how Meyers Leonard envisioned his return.
Foremost, because he never wanted to leave.
And yet in the wake of the shame of a single unfortunate, hurtful, ignorant moment two years ago, the former Miami Heat center returns with the Milwaukee Bucks for NBA playoff games in Miami as a study of one of the core tenets of the very culture he unwittingly disparaged.
As a study in atonement.
“Judaism is about second chances,” Rabbi Pinny Andrusier, director of the Chabad of Southwest Broward, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel this week when asked about Leonard. “We have Yom Kippur once a year.”
As in the religion’s Day of Atonement.
“But our prayers, for those unfamiliar, every single morning we acknowledge that during this day, in the morning since last night, in the afternoon since this morning, we might have done something to offend a fellow person or God,” Andrusier said. “We’re always asking for forgiveness.”
As did Leonard, directly to Andrusier in the immediate wake two years ago of uttering an anti-Semitic slur while live streaming video gaming.
In March 2021, while sidelined by injury while a member of the Heat, Leonard was playing Call of Duty: Warzone online and said to fellow gamers in the heat of the video battle: “F------g cowards. Don’t f------g snipe at me. You k--e b---h.”
The fallout over that second-to-last word was immediate and severe. Leonard was fined $50,000 and suspended a week by the NBA. He was traded shortly thereafter by the Heat in what amounted to a salary dump, immediately released by the acquiring Oklahoma City Thunder.
Leonard did not return to the NBA until he was signed last month by the Bucks, who are in the midst of a best-of-seven opening-round NBA playoff series against the Heat.
Which means being back in South Florida for games Saturday and Monday at the Kaseya Center, the new name of the Heat’s arena.
“It’s crazy how life works out,” Leonard told the Sun Sentinel. “I loved Miami, and I always will. And I will love Miami for the people who helped me, who made me realize what I had done that was so hurtful, that helped me.”
For some, the Leonard story became a chapter closed, another regrettable, vile moment of antisemitism that has been on the rise.
To Andrusier, the Leonard story is a living document, testimony to atonement.
“As soon as it happened, he was at my house for the first Friday night to share his side of the story,” Andrusier recalled this week of that Shabbat dinner. “And what I was always most impressed with is he never denied, he never made excuses. He owned up to it. I sincerely believe that he didn’t even realize what he said was an antisemitic remark. But the moment he learned and discovered that it was offensive to the Jews, he immediately owned up to it and was sincerely apologetic.”
That session, that moment, Leonard said, is when the healing began and ongoing growth took hold.
“The rabbi that I sat with, and, of course, nobody knew about this, because I wanted everything to be private,” Leonard said, “I talked to him a day after everything happened. And he said, ‘Would you come to my Chabad and sit with me?’ I said, ‘Of course, when?’ He said, ‘8 a.m. tomorrow.’ So 48 hours essentially after everything happened, I was at his Chabad, pouring my soul out.
“And I remember he stopped me about five minutes in and he said, ‘Meyers, I need to tell you something.’ I mean I am pouring tears. He goes, ‘You’re a good man with a good soul. You just made a mistake, but I promise you, I’ll get you through this. It’s going to take some time. But I just know the people in my community will understand, and they will see very clearly you’re a good man who made a mistake.’ "
Basketball became secondary.
Because one thing even bigger than Leonard’s 7-foot-1, 260-pound stature is his personality. He has a booming voice that belies his innate desire to be liked, something that became overwhelmingly evident during his two seasons with the Heat.
“I want people to like me,” he said. “I always have. It’s my Achilles heel. But I want them to see, ‘Oh wow, this is real and genuine,’ it’ not just, ‘Oh Meyers made it back to the league and he’s done.’ "
This was not Kyrie Irving promoting an antisemitic trope on his social media and then getting back to bouncing balls. This was not Kanye spreading antisemitic bile before returning to his limelight.
This was real, private, heartfelt, Andrusier said.
“We set forth for him a path of really discovering and learning who he offended,” Andrusier said. “So I took him to homes to deliver matzos for Passover. I took him to see people with numbers on their arms, Holocaust survivors. And took him to Century Village to meet other survivors.”
A process, Leonard said, that remains ongoing, including with other South Florida Jewish clergy, including Rabbi Efrem Goldberg at Boca Raton Synagogue.
“It’s not like a check the box and move on for me, at all,” Leonard, 31, said. “It is very much a lifelong thing for me.
“The thing is the Jewish community needs allies. And I’ll never forget what Efrem told me. He said, ‘Meyers, one of the most unique opportunities you have is you made mistakes, but as soon as you apologized on your social media, I forgave you. But Jewish people in the Jewish community, they need people like yourself to speak out. Because Jewish people can talk to Jewish people all they want about antisemitism and hate and all that, but when someone like yourself, regardless of a mistake or not, says this is wrong, it helps.’ "
So Leonard built a community, a community of those he hurt and a community of those he then embraced. Among those who will be at Monday’s Game 4 of Heat-Bucks as Leonard’s guests will be Andrusier and his 13-year-old son, Shmuly.
“I think if there’s anybody who deserves the opportunity to be forgiven and to be the ambassador or a spokesman against hate, for second chances, I think Meyers is the perfect candidate,” Andrusier said. “I still remember, as he was listening to the stories of the Holocaust survivors, the tears trickling down his cheek.
“He’s sincere, he’s authentic and deserves this opportunity. I’m rooting for him.”
For Leonard, it will be a moment to reflect on the worst of times as well of personal rebirth.
Of atonement.
“I will have plenty of people in attendance who are very close friends of mine now,” he said. “I hope they say, ‘He made a mistake, but look at what he did afterward.’ "
