Livestream Leonard has since issued an apology, while Spoelstra called his comments distasteful and hurtful.

Several people across the sports world have weighed in on this week, including New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman, who is Jewish, published an open letter saying in part quote.

I get the sense that you didn't use that word out of hate, more out of ignorance.

Most likely, you weren't trying to hurt anyone or even profile Jews in your comments.

That's what makes it so destructive.

When someone intends to be hateful, it's usually met with great resistance.

Casual ignorance is harder to combat and has greater reach, especially when you command great influence.

Hate is like a virus.

Even accidentally, it can rapidly spread.

I'm down in Miami fairly often.

Let's do a Shabbat dinner with some friends.

I'll show you a fun Time has also since been announced that Leonard will be away from the heat indefinitely that, according to the organization, while the NBA conducts an investigation.

Max, What's your reaction?

To admired?

Leonard's comments there.

First, I want to react to Julian Edelman.

I like when he does this very much.

He did it with the Sean Jackson, too.

Instead of canceling someone, as they say, Uh, usually bigotry or that kind of speech or am bigotry generally is from fear and hate, but also largely from ignorance.

And so what Julian Edelman does is reach out a hand and say, Look, let me put you up on some stuff and maybe it'll change the way you think and behave.

And I like that outreach from Edelman.

I applaud it both in the D Sean Jackson case and here with Meyers Leonard, let me say, I'm Jewish, but not only in my Jewish.

I speak Yiddish, Yiddish.

You could open the schmooze off the dish.

I just spoke Yiddish on ESPN, right?

I had I had relatives who were killed in the Holocaust.

My youngest daughter, mirror is named for my great grandmother, who was shot in the head Spiteri a ditch along with 3000 other Jews by the Nazis.

This is a personal issue to me.

I am not offended.

Personally.

I think Oftentimes when these things happen, you have to ask yourself who is the offended party?

Because I feel that we're in a great rush to be offended by something.

And I am a member of the group of which he is speaking.

And I'm not offended.

However, I have questions.

I'm not offended.

I don't believe he meant it.

Um, other than just kind of like a kind of general kind of insult toward the person he was shooting at in the game, right?

We're playing against in the game.

But I do have questions.

I have questions.

This is different than the Sean Jackson who quoted Hitler and then highlighted a specific, especially anti Semitic part right.

And even then, I'm not ready to cancel the Sean Jackson.

I have questions, and I didn't like to Sean Jackson's explanation.

I lead to more questions, and I have questions from Meyers Leonard.

I don't believe he doesn't know what the word means, and I don't know literally what the word means either.

I know it's an insult towards Jews.

That's all you have to know.

It's meant as an insult towards Jews.

I also don't find an equivalency here with this and the n word, let's say, because we're not in Germany, were living in the United States.

The history of different persecuted ethnic minorities is not exactly the same as African American history.

So there's a lot that goes into this.

I'll just say I'd like to know Stephen A where he was coming from.

What did he mean by it?

I don't believe he doesn't know that he didn't know it was an insult towards Jews.

Is he from a kind of friend group that messes around like that?

Was he playing someone who was Jewish?

And they're going back and forth like that?

I'd like to know.

The very least we can say is right now, Meyers Leonard paying a stupid tax because it's one thing to do that privately and say That's the culture of my friend group.

It's quite another to do it publicly that at the very least, you pay a stupid tax for and more than that.

Now I have questions I'd like to hear you answer.

I appreciate that explanation, and I appreciate you providing the education, not just to the world, about the things that you just said Max, but to me because I didn't know all of that, All right, so I really appreciate that.

Let me say this.

I could have listened to you.

There's a rare moment because I could have actually listened to you for the next 10 minutes, and usually that's very difficult for me to do when it comes to you.

But I would have gladly done that in this particular situation because I would have wanted to hear a complete soliloquy, diatribe or whatever word is appropriate from you because you are Jewish.

You are the offended party, and I think that's incredibly incredibly important here.

What I have to say about this to me isn't that important.

The most important thing is what you had to say because you're the offended party.

And so to me, you get to determine how offended you are by what Myles Lennon had to say, because you have a level of comprehension about where he was coming from and what exactly he meant.

Even though you still say you don't know, you certainly have a better idea of it than me.

Adam Silver, who's gonna be on greeny show radio show this afternoon.

The commissioner of the NBA who happens to be Jewish.

He can speak to that on far too many occasions I find, particularly as it pertains to African Americans.

When we're offended, you have people apologizing and backtracking and what have you Because they they're fearful of the reaction as opposed to really comprehending what was said, how offensive it was and why you have made a concerted effort to to to give miles later the chance to explain themselves.

I think a lot of times one of the problems is that we get guys, they make mistakes and they get to hide, issue a statement, disappear without really explaining and articulating what your position was weird emanated from.

Why do you say what you said?

Did you really mean it?

Let them stay in front and center and do that?

I'm not an advocate of the cancer culture mentality.

I don't believe in that.

I don't believe that this guy should never be in the league again because he made this mistake.

Unless you double down on it.

I agree on apologetic, and then you continue to do nonsense like that.

Then you got to go.

But if he simply made a mistake then I'm saying I'm of the mindset.

Okay, explain yourself and explain yourself before folks who understand exactly where you may be coming from so they can understand and comprehend whether or decipher, rather, whether you're phony or sincere, whether your contrition is real or fake.