Amar’e Stoudemire tries to lend his goggles to blind ref
Nov 14, 2016, 7:01 PM | Updated: 7:58 pm
We don’t know the exact context because we’re talking about a brief clip of a basketball game in the Israeli Premier League, but former Phoenix Suns star Amar’e Stoudemire appeared on the radar Monday when international reporter David Pick posted this video to Twitter.
It’s the former NBA All-Star, suited up for Hapoel Jerusalem, attempting to hand his goggles to an incredulous referee.
Amar’e Stoudemire thinks these overseas refs are blind. pic.twitter.com/oedImxezcB
— David Pick (@IAmDPick) November 14, 2016
The referee, upon realizing what Stoudemire is intimating, refuses to take the spectacles.
It’s unclear what exactly Stoudmire wasn’t happy about, but we can imagine his fury. In Pac-12 country, Glasses Ref is a symbol worthy of his own Twitter account, after all.
To our knowledge, Stoudemire’s glasses don’t even help with vision impairment. He underwent Lasik surgery to fix his vision as a member of the Suns in 2003 and wears the goggles as protection after he suffered a torn iris and later a detached retina in the 2008-09 season. The latter injury required surgery.
Stoudemire, who retired from the NBA before this season, told David Letterman in 2011 that he had 20/20 vision.
And so it seems Stoudemire’s gesture to the official was purely symbolic.
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