Kevin Durant shows support for Royal Ivey's South Sudan following Gilbert Arenas' controversial comments
Kevin Durant and Steph Curry sat down for a news conference Thursday ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Team USA starts its campaign against Nikola Jokic and Serbia on Sunday. The team is looking for its fifth straight Olympic gold, while Durant is looking for his third.
Among the various questions thrown at the Phoenix Suns forward, one was about the South Sudan team, whom Team USA barely beat 101-100 on Friday. After the narrow win, former NBA star Gilbert Arenas went on a racist and xenophobic rant. It’s no surprise that Kevin Durant had good things to say:
“Secretly, I am rooting for them a little bit — except when they play us.”
Team USA and South Sudan are in the same group and are scheduled to play Wednesday. The African nation, which is led by coach Royal Ivey, could prove to be a formidable opponent once again. They have great size and are not afraid to shoot from the perimeter.
It took a heroic effort from LeBron James to get the win in the Showcase game but things could be different in Paris and the crowd could be expected to cheer for the underdogs. However, Team USA will hopefully get back Kevin Durant who didn’t feature in any of the five practice games.
What did Gilbert Arenas say about Kevin Durant-less Team USA’s narrow win against South Sudan?
After Team USA’s narrow win, Gilbert Arenas went on a rant against the team. He said:
“[Joel Embiid] throwing the game for his cousins [South Sudan] and sh**. They don’t even have shoes. They get their shoes from America. We gotta ship them shoes... They shooting on f****** peach baskets in dirt with no shoes.”
It doesn’t take a lot to figure out that the comments were highly insensitive and were rightly criticized. Loul Deng, the president of the South Sudan Basketball Federation, came up with a response as well. He wrote:
"As for Gilbert’s comments, they were certainly more disrespectful and cruel. Personally, I don’t care much. I would never trade places with anyone; being African is special. However, for young African and African American kids who admire and listen to Gilbert, these comments can make you think less of yourself and make the rest of the world think less of Africans.
“We’ve worked very hard in the last four years to be here, and we can’t allow mere seconds to take that away. Instead, let’s appreciate the moment and use these comments as an opportunity to educate. Being loved is always better than being tolerated. If we as a people realized the greatness from which we came we would be less likely to disrespect ourselves."
After how the events went down, Kevin Durant will not be the only one rooting for South Sudan. Basketball fans around the world will be cheering for the young squad as it makes its Olympic debut in Paris.