Two of the NBA's biggest names have waded into the diplomatic storm swirling around Benjamin Netanyahu's legal status in the United States. According to a report by the Israeli outlet ONE, San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama and Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving showed support for a video posted by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani calling for the Israeli prime minister's arrest.
Mamdani released the video this week acknowledging that his own administration lacks the independent legal authority to enforce the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant against Netanyahu should he set foot in New York. "It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant," Mamdani said, while calling on the federal government to "join the ICC and execute this warrant" instead. He went on to describe Netanyahu as a "war criminal" who is not welcome in the city — comments confirmed by multiple outlets including CNN and NBC News.
The ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant in late 2024, alleging crimes against humanity and war crimes tied to Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza, including the use of starvation as a method of warfare. Israeli officials have flatly rejected the accusations. President Donald Trump responded to Mamdani's video by declaring that Netanyahu "will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form," while on American soil.
It is against that backdrop that ONE reports Wembanyama and Irving engaged with, and effectively endorsed, Mamdani's post — a notable moment given how rarely active NBA stars insert themselves directly into a dispute over an Israeli leader's legal jeopardy on foreign soil.
For Irving, the gesture fits a well-documented pattern. The Mavericks guard has repeatedly voiced support for Palestinians over the past two years, from wearing a keffiyeh at a postgame press conference to donning a chain shaped like a map of Israel colored in the Palestinian flag during a nationally televised game. He has also, more controversially, weathered a suspension and the loss of his Nike endorsement in 2022 after sharing material widely condemned as antisemitic, for which he later apologized to Jewish communities.
Wembanyama's involvement, as characterized by ONE, is different in kind: the French big man has largely stayed out of Middle East politics during his rise to superstardom, and the report frames this as one of his first public forays into the subject. That alone is likely to draw outsized attention in Israel, where Wembanyama has become a familiar face after facing off against Israeli internationals in the NBA and on the European stage.
None of the parties involved — Wembanyama, Irving, Mamdani's office or the NBA — has issued a formal statement specifically addressing the players' engagement with the post beyond what ONE has reported, and the claim has not yet been independently corroborated by other outlets in our checks. The underlying political dispute between Mamdani, Trump and Netanyahu's government, however, is extensively documented and continues to develop by the day.
The episode is the latest reminder of how directly American sports figures — particularly in the NBA, where player activism has long been tolerated and often encouraged — keep getting pulled into the geopolitics surrounding Israel and Gaza, two-plus years after October 7 reshaped the conversation across US locker rooms.
