{"id":480934,"date":"2026-02-21T01:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/480934\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T01:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:12:13","slug":"spike-lee-says-his-pro-palestinian-nba-all-star-game-outfit-wasnt-meant-as-a-dig-against-deni-avdija","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/480934\/","title":{"rendered":"Spike Lee Says His Pro-Palestinian NBA All-Star Game Outfit Wasn\u2019t Meant as a Dig Against Deni Avdija"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Arts-Spike-Lee.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-105208\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Arts-Spike-Lee.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"994\" height=\"552\"  \/><\/a>Spike Lee at the 2026 NBA All-Star Game held at the Intuit Dome on Feb. 15, 2026 in Los Angeles. (Christopher Polk\/Billboard via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>Philissa Cramer | JTA<\/p>\n<p>The director Spike Lee says he was not targeting the first Israeli NBA All-Star when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2026\/02\/16\/sports\/spike-lee-kyrie-irving-wear-pro-palestinian-outfits-to-nba-all-star-game-featuring-first-israeli-player\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he wore a pro-Palestinian outfit to the All-Star Game on Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Lee\u2019s outfit featured a keffiyeh-patterned sweater and a bag strap with images of the Palestinian flag. Some of his critics charged that he had chosen the outfit especially because Deni Avdija, the Israeli star of the Portland Trail Blazers, was taking the court.<\/p>\n<p>Lee sought to put that idea to rest in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DU4LyP_EqyB\/?hl=en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a post on Instagram<\/a> late Tuesday, saying that, as a superfan of the East Coast New York Knicks, he wasn\u2019t as familiar with West Coast teams like the Trail Blazers and didn\u2019t know that Avdija was Israeli.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere has been some conjecture about what I wore to the games on Saturday and Sunday. The clothes I wore are symbols of my concern for the Palestinian children and civilians, and my utmost belief in human dignity for all humankind,\u201d Lee wrote. \u201cWhat I wore was not intended as a gesture of hostility to Jewish people or to support violence against anyone, nor was it intended as a comment on the significance of Deni being an an All-Star.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>About his lack of familiarity with Avdija, whose World Team fell short in the round-robin contest featuring 28 NBA stars, Lee added, \u201cHe can BALL. NOW I DO KNOW.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>        <script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spike Lee at the 2026 NBA All-Star Game held at the Intuit Dome on Feb. 15, 2026 in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[15105,25170,190649,355,6406,221887,57088,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-480934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-arts-and-culture","9":"tag-deni-avdija","10":"tag-jta","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","13":"tag-pro-palestinian","14":"tag-spike-lee","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}