I can often be found posting comments over at freedarko; there is nothing to say about freedarko that hasn't been said already, but in short: it's the most scholarly, intelligent basketball "blog" (so much more than that) you'll ever see.  The most mundane post is a work of scholaristic art, and each sentence and word on the site has more meaning that most articles you will read, regardless of source or topic.

Today I was very active commenting on this post. John Amaechi is a former NBA player, of limited stature (best description: "at best, an average player") who has been making headlines lately because of the release of his book, which tells of his experience as a closeted gay in the NBA.  That description is a little off - he may have been closeted publicly, but not so much in regards to his teammates, who knew he was gay.  Freedarko took the angle of trying to figure out how finding out a teammate (or player, in the case of a coach) is gay would effect said player's teammates, and the rest of the league.

I broke down the conversation to the two parties that would be effected by having an openly gay player in the NBA: one was the press, and pointed out the differences between the NFL and the NBA: The NFL controls the press coverage of its sport far better than the NBA (this point can be expanded, but for now take it as fact); the NFL would act to limit coverage, considering that an openly gay player might be problematic for a large portion of its fanbase, which is middle America (think NASCAR set).  Not all NFL fans fall under that category (maybe not even alot), but more NFL fans than NBA fans.  Given this, the NFL would try to keep it under wraps by many means, but if force to deal with it, would probably deal with it while keeping coverage of it to a minimum.  The NBA has no such control over its press coverage, so it becomes more of a story in the NBA. Hence, Amaechi > former NFLers who have come out (like Esera Tuaolo). And, as a fellow commenter pointed out, if population stats say that 5-10 NBAer are gay, what about NFLers (much, much larger population set)?  In other words, the NFL probably has dealt with this, and chosen to keep it under wraps to this point.

The second discussion topic is how would the players in both leagues react to an openly gay teammate/opponent.  The NBA, by virtue of having a smaller set of players, is a tighter network.  Players on a team have to interact more than football teammates (how much time does Peyton spend actually talking/playing with the punter?); players have to interact on both sides of the court.  A gay safety would only interact/play really with another team's offense, and probably just WRs, to be honest.  So in the end, the NBA players would adjust quicker.  Think Magic when he announced he had HIV; there was a period of questions, of misinformation, but eventually things quickly reached equilibrium again....

And I pointed out that, over the past 10 years, there must have been a gay player in every sports league.  You think Amaechi is the first?  Or that nobody knew he was gay at the time, when according to most accounts, even some fans knew.  He used to bring his BF to practices!  Numbers suggest they are gays in every league; logic suggests that they can't keep it a secret, not from their teammates.  So I highly doubt this is the kind of thing that would really be hard for other players, coaches, etc. to deal with.  Reality is they have probably been dealing with it for years.

Alot of this discussion centered on "how will the players react (LeBron James was an example) or how will the coach react (Jerry Sloan, Doc Rivers).  I strongly believe this can't be something new for them; as we now know, Sloan did coach a gay player, and knew it at the time (Amaechi's BF would show up to practices).  At some point in their lives, whether college, high school, or in the playground court, they have balled with or against a gay player; and, probably more often than you would think, they knew the player was gay.  So therefore the only people who would be dealing with an openly gay player for the first time would be the fans, and perhaps the larger press. 

Pointing this out didn't deter commenters from asking more questions about how the players would deal with it... Paper Tiger had the follow comments to direct at me: your thought that players are so used to having gay people in their sport has me wondering, with all the homophobic and downright bigotted talk that some athletes occasionally get caught spouting, why are players never "outed" (other than TO's "rat" comments about jeff garcia, i can't think of an example.) are you thinking that the "trust" and locker room camraderie culture really trumps all that aggression and hate? obviously not denying prior presence of gays, it just begs the question, given the context.

It got me thinking, and I responded with my theory that it ("gayness") is treated as a "dirty secret"; hence, yeah, you can out me as gay, and I can out you to your wife as having a secret child with someone else; or out you to the press as a drunk, or whatever. The NBA is a job, like all others; most people know some dirty secret about their coworker, if they are close, or if they travel on business together alot. Now imagine that in the NBA, where you are constantly on the road with your team; where there are handlers and entourages for each player, and trainers... I can't believe players can really keep too many secrets from each other, you know.

I left those comments at 6ish, and at 8:00 I got some validation on TNT's weekly basketball coverage. The topic of Amaechi's book came up, and here's former NBA stars Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith on the topic:

Barkley and Kenny: "experts" who worry about the locker room are stupid. We've both played with gay guys. Everyone knows, it doesn't come up, it's not a big deal. Just play.

Barkley on ESPN: “I got a ton of gay friends and I played with gay guys. I played with two or three gay guys; that’s their business and I could care less.”

On TNT: "Kenny, you and I know we've played with gay players."

So, yeah, no surprise - there have been NBA players who were gay, and their teammates knew it. The larger question is would fans accept it? Someday we'll have an answer, and I think that day is not too far in the future... maybe in the next 5-15 years....

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