Former NBA Star Paul Pierce | Courtesy

Former National Basketball Association (NBA) star, Paul Pierce has apologized to South Sudan after his disrespectful and ignorant comments which were considered dismissive before facing the USA in their exhibition game on Saturday ahead of the Paris Olympics.

In a Fox Sport 1 Undisputed Show last Saturday, Pierce stated that South Sudan shouldn’t be on a court with the USA and said they can’t go above 30 points in the game.

Pierce, a former American professional basketball player also underrated South Sudan citing. their loss to Greece last year in the FIBA World Cup.

“Hey, I give you 30 South Sudan. You take it, man. They probably ain’t got nobody over 6ft3in. They’ve been good over the years.

“But so,  they didn’t qualify. They lost to Greece and now we have South Sudan. Like how did South Sudan get in are they gonna play Davis? And we still gonna win by 30.”

After the USA escaped narrowly at 101-100, Pierce admitted to his disrespect to Africa’s youngest nation and publicly apologized for ravaging South Sudan’s delightful reputation in the history of the sport.

On the same show Undisputed, he miserably called for team USA to be concerned with the South Sudan National Basketball team ahead of the Paris Olympics saying their shots and speed were unimaginable to the world.

“I like to offer an apology to South Sudan for the disrespect that I’ve given them not having any knowledge about their team or their country. So, the reason, like I said, you know, South Sudan hasn’t been on the map for that long.

“You know, they got guys, they have prospects, you know, and you can’t take that away from them. You got to give a lot of credit, you know, and I did my research over the weekend.

“I apologize and I’ll be watching South Sudan more because they were exciting to watch and they got my attention, the speed that South Sudan showed is something that the US should be concerned about.”

The South Sudan-USA 100-101 result has sparked discussions on the young nation with an unimaginable capability challenging the team USA by even going 15 points ahead in the early quarters of the game.

South Sudan is set to play Puerto Rico on the 28^th of July before facing the USA on the 31^st of July, and Serbia on the 3^rd of August.

Currently, the FIBA World Ranking places South Sudan in the second best position in Africa after Côte d’Ivoire, and 31 globally where the USA is placed number 1.