Spainish Baller Jose Calderon Wants To Apologize For That Whole Slanted Eyes Olympic Mess

As the NBA training camp season opens, a lot of last season’s failures fuel the questions spouted by reporters. But for Toronto Raptors guard Jose Calderon, it’s the most-say racist picture he took with his Spanish Olympic basketball squad that has gotten the press corps aflutter from the get go. And to Calerdon’s credit, he’s finally admitted and realized what was so screwed up about. Two months later. While under the lights and an intense microscope. But hey, better late than never, right?

“It was a mistake, a bad mistake,” he adds of the picture, which showed the Spanish national team pulling back the corners of their eyes. “We weren’t meaning to do anything hurtful, I take that like a lesson.”

“I wanted to tell the people what I am, I’ve never had that problem before in my life and it will never happen again.” Calderon says he sent emails back to about 100 fans who wrote to him to say how hurt they were by the picture. “I wrote to the people who really cared about it, the people who emailed me and people who really thought I was saying something bad. It was a bad mistake, I wanted to tell them.”

We wonder if going back to have to play in front of Toronto’s large Asian population had anything to do with it. Obviously they played in China without his admission, but now that the ka-ching instead of Olympic bling is in play, it’s a whole new ballgame.
Earlier: Spain Makes Sure They Medal High In The Racist 400
Jose Calderon Says “It was a mistake, a bad mistake” [My Hogtown, via Deadspin]
Image [AP]