Kenyon Martin stepped up something of an apology for his statements chastizing Jeremy Lin over the new dreadlock hairstyle he's been rocking, on Friday, October 6. Lin recently spelled out the reasons behind his choice to embrace the Afrocentric look in an article published via The Players Tribune. Martin apparently wasn't feeling anything about the look or his reasoning, and he let the world know with a couple of posts on social media. Lin has since responded to Martin with a fairly respectful message which he wrote directly on Martin's page. Martin says he's been trying to reach Lin but hasn't been able to, thus he's gone the media route to follow up on the transgression with an explanation for it all.
"Wasn't really saying it to him, I just made a blanket statement. Um, which I probably should've reached out to him. But, um, the man had dreadlocks and I thought it was hilarious. I'm saying, it wasn't more, nothing more or nothing less than I thought it was hilarious," Martin told TMZ. He chaulked the perceived nature of his comments up to his word choice and expressed that he particularly regretted making his issue with Lin's hair about race. All in all, the posts weren't meant to be anything but a playful observation according to the 39-year-old.
Martin went on to disclose that since his remarks he's received a lot of negative blowback from fans, with some even sinking to the depths of racial epithets. Assumptions have been made about his character that he doesn't find to be fair. But as sorry as Martin claimed to be during the interview, and as repulsive as he has felt some of the attitudes towards him have been over the past couple of days, beyond the way he said it, he maintains that he doesn't actually find anything wrong with what he said.
"If I ruffled Jeremy Lin's feathers or if I made him feel a way, I apologize, brother," Martin went on to say. "My wording was bad. Is it still funny that he has dreadlocks? Yes."
