Former Miami Heat center Meyers Leonard is guarded by Boston Celtics center Daniel Theis during their Jan. 28 match at American Airlines Arena. Photo: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports.

Professional basketball player Meyers Leonard spoke in a recent interview about how the Jewish community has warmly embraced him following his “mistake of extreme ignorance” when he said an antisemitic slur earlier this year.

The NBA free agent, 29, told TMZ Sports, “It’s hard to explain. The people who have been the most loving and the most compassionate, showing the most grace, have been so many people from the Jewish community.”

The former Miami Heat center used an antisemitic slur on March 9 during a live-stream session of “Call of Duty: Warzone” on the gaming platform Twitch. As a result, the NBA fined him $50,000, suspended him for one week and required him to participate in a cultural diversity program. Leonard, who was with the NBA for nine years, also lost a number of gaming sponsorships and was traded from the Heat to the Oklahoma City Thunder, which dropped him not long after.

The athlete apologized more than once for making the antisemitic remark and said in August that he is taking steps to educate himself about antisemitism and the Jewish community, which include attending his first Shabbat dinner, speaking with rabbis and Holocaust survivors, visiting the Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach and helping with a Passover food drive.

“I can honestly sit and talk for an hour about this,” he told TMZ, “about all the different experiences with little kids in the Jewish community, to teenagers, all the way up to rabbis, who have just been so generous with their time and so understanding.”

Meyers also said that after he made the offending comment, he and his family were targeted with abuse online, and threats of sexual assault and murder.

“It’s been a very, very long and hard process,” he explained. “The death threats, and my wife is being told ‘don’t leave your house, we’re gonna rape you,’ and these things. It was hard. So a lot of these things are difficult to share, but over time I’ve been able to heal.”

Leonard also hopes to return to the NBA and admitted, “I would be ecstatic if I could play for the Miami Heat again. I fell in love with that place, I really did. My wife and I love it there [in Miami]. There’s something about the culture there that’s just me.”

He concluded by saying, “I can only be hopeful that people will allow me bounce back from a mistake. This was a mistake of extreme ignorance, and I own it.”