Former Toronto Raptor Lou Williams says he didn't mean to diss Canada
American NBA star Lou Williams, currently of the Los Angeles Clippers, is speaking out in defence of himself after feeling the wrath of Canadians who didn't like recent comments he made about how much our country sucks.
Williams, who played for the Toronto Raptors during the 2014-2015 NBA season, now-famously spoke about why the new NBA Champions can't keep big name players for very long in an episode of the popular No Chill Podcast on Wednesday.
The roughly one hour and 20-minute-long podcast touched on numerous basketball-related hot topics, but it was a segment about free agents near the end of the conversation that's been getting the most attention in the days since it aired.
In discussing Toronto's prospects, Williams told the podcast's hosts that he didn't think they'd have any problem attracting big stars — especially in light of the team's recent NBA Championship win.
"The problem they're going to have is trying to keep guys," he said.
"Once you're there, you'll love playing for the Raptors, you'll love playing for the country, but that fourth, fifth month into the season, you're like 'goddamn, I want to go home.'"
The 32-year-old Memphis, Tennessee, native then proceeded to run off a laundry list of why playing in Canada sucks for Americans.
"When you play in Toronto, you feel like you're playing overseas," he said. "We can't wait to go on the road sometimes, just to be in America... It's like little [things] you don't think of, like the Channels on your TV, phone bill, you got to get a Canadian bank account."
Toronto fans, already mad-sensitive about the Clippers in light of their open courtship of NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard ahead of his free agency period, took those as fighting words.
Williams says they weren't intended to be.
"I don't know how this got interpreted as a diss to Toronto. Canada was and is a dope place to play," he wrote in the caption of an Instagram post on Thursday. "But it has its challenges. Any player on your current team will echo that."
"So that's not a diss. It's just a fact that playing in Toronto is unlike playing for any other team in the NBA," he continued. "That was the point. No diss. No disrespect."
He then invited those who thought his words disrespectful to "talk sh*t in my comments" with his fans.
They've certainly taken him up on that offer... and then some.
"You thought Raptors fans was gone let that comment slide?" wrote local rapper Preme. "No way in hell. And fresh off a ring. They want all da smoke"
"Mans just trying get Kawhi on the squad, well Kawhi don't feel same way you do," wrote another commenter. "Maybe if you stuck around you would smell the chip."
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