Joel Embiid blasts Gilbert Arenas’ controversial South Sudan comments

After Gilbert Arenas went on a xenophobic rant following Team USA’s recent win over South Sudan, Joel Embiid fired back.

Led by LeBron James, Team USA squeaked out a 101-100 win against South Sudan Saturday in an exhibition game ahead of the Paris Olympics. With much of the focus on the valiant effort by South Sudan following the game, former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas went on a rant filled with offensive tropes while mocking the USA men’s basketball team for nearly losing to a little-known roster of basketball players.

“We got the males almost lost to some Africans,” Arenas said before laughing and making a disparaging gesture. “Man, Embiid over there throwing games for his cousins and [expletive]…We wasn’t supposed to be losing to The Air Up There. Come on, man. Cool Runnings, we’re not supposed to be losing to the Cool Runnings team.”

In the wake of Arenas’ rant, Embiid expressed disappointment when asked by Africa Basket about the comments.

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 before noting he wasn’t aware of the exact comments by Arenas. “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.”

Embiid was born in the Central African country of Cameroon, which is about 1300 miles from South Sudan, before moving to the United States when he was 16 and becoming and American citizen in 2022.

This wasn’t the first time Arenas said something controversial. On his own podcast and as a contributor to Nightcap with Shannon Sharpe and Chad Johnson, Arenas has routinely seemed interested in aggravating the internet. And his disparaging comments about South Sudan did just that.

[Africa Basket]