Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah was fined US$50,000 on Monday for yelling an insulting remark, believed to be a gay slur, at a spectator in Miami during his team’s NBA playoff loss on Sunday night.
Television cameras showed Noah appearing to say “faggot” after sitting down on the bench just 5 minutes, 34 seconds into the opening quarter of Miami’s 96-85 triumph.
“I apologize,” Noah said. “The fan said something to me that I thought was disrespectful, and I got caught up in the moment and I said some things that I shouldn’t have said. I was frustrated and I don’t mean no disrespect to anybody.”
The fine imposed by the NBA was half the amount imposed on Los Angeles Lakers playmaker Kobe Bryant for saying the same thing to referee Ben Adams during a game.
A league spokesman said the higher amount of Bryant’s fine came because he was verbally abusive to an NBA game official.
Noah met with NBA officials on Monday before he was fined for his remark to the Heat supporter.
“The fan said something that was disrespectful toward me and I went back at him,” Noah said. “I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. Anybody who knows me knows that I’m not like that. I’m an open-minded guy. I said the wrong thing and I’m going to pay the consequences — deal with the consequences — like a man. I don’t want to be a distraction to the team right now.”
“I don’t remember the moment, but ever since I was a kid, that’s the first thing I loved,” two-time NBA All-Star Isaiah Thomas said of his lifelong romance with basketball. However, that journey unfolded against the limitations of his size in a game where height often dictates opportunity — a reality he confronted throughout his career. At 175cm, Thomas is less than 2cm taller than the average Taiwanese adult male, while NBA players during his career stood at about 200cm on average. Compared with the NBA’s average career length of less than five years, Thomas’ 13-season career stands out as
Hans Niemann declares he would become a “stone cold killer” in a Netflix documentary released on Tuesday about his feud with five-time classical world champion Magnus Carlsen, a pledge that injects new edge into the lingering fallout from the cheating scandal that shook elite chess. “I’m gonna be a stone cold killer the rest of my life,” the US’ Niemann says in the film. “I’m going to become the best player in the world, and no one is going to believe that now, but this clip will play over and over again in 10 years — just wait.” “I just
Dakar and Rabat have longstanding ties, but relations have been strained since the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final, which Senegal won in mid-January before being stripped of the title, which was transferred to Morocco. Now, the AFCON trophy is something of a thorn in the two countries’ sides. On Rue Mohamed V, the street where Moroccan vendors are based in the Senegalese capital, a police van is parked. “The police have been on high alert since the Confederation of African Football [CAF] decided to award the title to Morocco, but there have been no incidents,” a local resident said.
Top seeded Jessica Pegula on Friday once again fought back from a set down to reach the WTA Charleston Open semi-finals with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win against Russia’s Diana Shnaider. Defending champion Pegula has lost the first set in all three of her matches at the tournament so far, but again dug deep to maintain her hopes of retaining the title. The world No. 5 from the US took 2 hours, 10 minutes to defeat 19th-ranked Shnaider, relying on a formidable service game that included eight aces. Shnaider battled well in the first two sets and broke early for a 2-0 lead
RSS