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CHICAGO - APRIL 15: Antonio Davis #34 of the Chicago Bulls pulls a rebound away from Mario Kasun #41 of the Orlando Magic on April 15, 2005 at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Mario Kasun, a 6’10 center out of Croatia, played for the Orlando Magic for two years between 2004 and 2006. At a time when the NBA was designed around trying to stop the behemoth that was a prime Shaquille O’Neal, Kasun was a big body who played exclusively in the paint for the Magic on defense in his few bench minutes, as was the practice at the time.

He was quite good in his limited time, albeit extremely foul-prone, averaging 2.7 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.1 fouls in 7.8 minutes per game. And after leaving the NBA, Kasun went on to play the best part of a decade to decent standards around the globe, including playing for Spanish giants Barcelona in the EuroLeague, where he would have heart problems he would later blame on his coach.

But, it is not Kasun’s basketball career that brings us here today.

Speaking on a podcast back in November hosted by another former NBA player (Mile Ilic, once of the then-New Jersey Nets), Kasun spoke on a variety of topics that were not their shared inability to stop Shaq. Kasun – who had appeared on Ilic’s show, Jao Mile, once before back in 2024 – spoke on politics, race relations, the Spanish police, multicultural societies, the LGBTQ+ movement, and the Tate brothers.

If that sounds like a bad idea, rest assured that it was. Fair warning that the phrase “I have gay friends” is about to be used.

Oh Dear

The following comes from the embedded Instagram short posted by Jao Mile’s production team. The captions were translated initially via Google Translate, before being edited and confirmed by multiple translators that are native Serbian speakers who spoke with Heavy. The result is an amalgamation of their interpretations of the various colloquialisms used by the pair:

KASUN [referring to Spain, where he lives]: So, imagine this. I have a house, I am going to Croatia for ten days, and someone breaks into my house. You have an alarm and other things […] and the alarm goes off. The police don’t come, for whatever reason. Within 24 hours, if he’s not kicked out, he has the right to live in your house for free for a year.

ILIC: Wait, bro….

KASUN: I swear on my child’s life, bro, that’s the situation. In my town, an old couple went on a cruise for 15 days. The house is worth 16 million euros. A family of gypsies rushed in, and the mayor was even bringing them food. Poor them [the old couple], in debt, for 70 years. Who is the normal one here? The police come in, break down the door and used pepper spray on that family. What happened to the guns? And God knows what these [cuts off mid-sentence].

Everything has become deranged. You have some laws that have nothing to do with real life. And now you have this situation – by the way, I really have nothing against gay people [but b]rother, keep it behind closed doors. Now they’ve started to appear in everything. They’re trying to get into schools, [and teach] 10-year-olds talking about transgenders, gays or lesbians. Well bro, keep it behind closed doors. Call me old-fashioned, I have gay friends and everything, but I don’t go around with a **** and hit people in the head with it on the street.

ILIC: [laughs]

KASUN: You get me? [laughs] Well, ****, yeah. I mean, call me old-fashioned, call me stupid, call me whatever. I can’t say some things are normal; I can’t be convinced that something is normal when it’s not normal.

ILIC: Yeah, they have such a need to show that what they’re already doing is okay. Awful, bro, awful. And what’s worst is, most of these pro-European governments are funding it so much.

KASUN: Well, look, we’re going back to some Satanism, let’s call it that. Look at the last Olympics – bro, don’t **** with me. It [referring to the Queer Last Supper images at the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony] was made with the highest level of Satanism. Mocking the Catholic Orthodox faith, mocking us Christians. And then they say, “That Tate dude, the Tate brothers are crazy…”. They came out to defend our faith, and they are Muslims! [points at head to signify bewilderment]

ILIC: It’s all gone too far.

KASUN: Brother, the world has gone to ****, it’s unreal. I feel sorry for my child, your child, his child. It is easy for us, we’ve been through the wringer already; I say, if I die tomorrow, I’ll say: “I lived to the fullest.” [But] what will those poor kids live for? My child can’t walk 50 meters from his house to the store after 5 pm. Where is that normal? And in Serbia, in Croatia, you can still to this day go from one end of Zagreb, at any time of the day, without anyone touching you. But now the [racial epithet] are starting to come, now this **** is getting out of hand.

Kasun And Ilic Hardly Seem Embarrassed

Social attitudes, of course, differ around the globe. What might be controversial in one part of the world could be considered normal in another. It is therefore of note that, while same-sex activity is broadly legal (albeit marriage is not in Serbia) and discrimination is prohibited by law in both Serbia and Croatia, attitudes are generally conservative, with significant social stigma and discrimination existing despite the supposed legal protections. The same is true of attitudes towards Romani people.

The fact that Kasun and Ilic speak views that more others than we might like share, though, does not alleviate the impact of what they are saying. In the views of Mario Kasun, which he chooses to speak on a successful podcast without so much as the imposition of a paywall and in full knowledge of his own reputation as an unrepentant opinion-giver, those with what he considers to be unsavory morals should be quiet. The hypocrisy of this apparently has not hit him yet.

The entire episode is available below. And to be extremely generous for a moment, if Kasun’s comments in the above excerpts are somehow presented out of some kind of hard-to-fathom context that would somehow mitigate the nastiness of his words – remember that it was not Heavy who presented them that way. These were the clips that the Jao Mile team chose to promote, while the eponymous host laughed along and agreed. They hardly seem ashamed.

Reached separately by Heavy via email, Ilic and the production crew have not responded to multiple approaches. Kasun has not been approached because he does not seem like someone worth hearing from. He has said enough already.