The USA men’s basketball team enters the Paris Olympics a perfect 5-0 in their tune-up games in Las Vegas, Abu Dhabi, and London, but even with an unblemished record, they have not looked as dominant as many expected. They needed LeBron James to takeover late against Germany to win on Monday, and last Saturday they needed both late-game heroics from LeBron and some shot luck to escape with a 1-point win over South Sudan.
That performance led to an awful lot of takes about Team USA, including some unfortunate, xenophobic comments from Gilbert Arenas on his podcast in which he made a number of remarks about the South Sudan team and went as far as to say Joel Embiid (who is Cameroonian) was “throwing games for his cousins.” Embiid was asked about Arenas’ comments, and while he said he hasn’t seen them, he noted that if they were as negative as they seemed, they were “disappointing” and “really unfortunate,” citing how negative the world often is right now.
I asked @usabasketball’s Cameroon-born
star Joel Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) about Gilbert Arena’s (@GilsArenaShow) recent disgusting and racist comments about Africans and African basketball players… @FECABASKET @FIBA @SSBFed pic.twitter.com/aBRZfXnxTi
— Δ¥Ω
(@iam_Ayo) July 22, 2024
“I’m African first and foremost. I might be playing for Team USA, but I’m Cameroonian first and foremost,” Embiid said. “If it 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. Even the position that I’m in, still have a lot of impact where I’m from and the whole continent of Africa and that’s never going to stop. It’s really unfortunate, especially in the world we live in right now so much negativity.”
Arenas’ comments crossed a line, and Embiid made it a point to highlight the positivity of the moment, particularly with the rise in African talent in the world of basketball.