If you saw overtime of the Bulls-Heat game last night, I’m wondering if you saw what I saw: Big trouble for the rest of the NBA. Last summer LeBron James talked about winning five…six…seven titles with the Miami Heat. At one point they hovered around .500 and everyone laughed. But that overtime last night was [...]
Posts under ‘NBA’
NBA fines Chicago Bulls’ Joakim Noah $50,000 for anti-gay slur, half of Kobe Bryant’s fine
The NBA fined Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls $50,000 for saying, “F**k you, faggot” to a Miami Heat fan. It was only half of what the league fined Kobe Bryant for a similar slur hurled at a referee last month. The league fined Noah “for using a derogatory and offensive term from the bench.” [...]
Chicago Bulls’ Joakim Noah calls Miami Heat fan a “faggot,” apologizes
The teaching moment of Kobe Bryant being fined $100,000 for calling a ref a “faggot” lasted a month since it happened again. This time the culprit is Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls, who said this to a Miami Heat fan during Sunday’s Game 3 on TNT: “F**k you, faggot.” Noah had just been called [...]
27 sports people have already come out in 2011: athletes, journalists, coaches and execs
Updated: May 19, 2011 When Ross Forman of the Windy City Times asked me to come up with a list of all the people in sports who have come out publicly this year, I had no idea the number would eclipse two dozen. And still counting. From the two men who kicked off this year, [...]
Video: Gay Phoenix Suns president Rick Welts talks to Eliot Spitzer
Openly gay Phoenix Suns president Rick Welts sat down with CNN’s Eliot Spitzer for a few minutes and opened up about his decision to come out. He talked about his fear that being openly gay would limit his ability to have a career in sports, Kobe Bryant, and how the reaction from across the NBA [...]
Charles Barkley: ‘I’d rather have a gay guy who can play than a straight guy who can’t play’
Charles Barkley gives an awesome interview to Mike Wise of the Washington Post, reacting to the news that Phoenix Suns President Rick Welts is gay. Barkley said he has played with gay players while he was in the NBA and their presence had zero negative impact. All he cared about was whether a guy could [...]
Video: Grant Hill, Jared Dudley PSA for GLSEN
GLSEN and the NBA have released their Think B4 You Speak PSA featuring Phoenix Suns Grant Hill and Jared Dudley. It’s fun, hip, light and seems to strike the perfect tone for reaching teenagers. Plus, instead of couching the issue inside the broader issue of bullying or name-calling, it speaks directly about homophobia. Very cool [...]
Charles Barkley says all that would matter is whether a gay athlete can play
Leave it to the unique Charles Barkley to distill the gays in sports debate to its essence: The only thing that matters is whether a guy can play or not. From Michael Hiestand at USA Today: Barkley, on SiriusXM Radio, was asked about New York Ranger Sean Avery supporting same-sex marriage and whether openly gays [...]
Rick Welts, Phoenix Suns president and CEO, comes out as gay
It was 10 years ago that I first met Rick Welts. He had been a high-powered executive at the NBA and I asked him why, at the time, he didn’t come out. I remember him not being a big fan of the question, more ignoring the topic than anything else. Still, he was a nice [...]
‘It Gets Better’ video against gay bullying airs as an ad during NBA playoffs
The “It Gets Better” ad done by Google for its Chrome browser, which received a lot of attention when it aired during “Glee” last week, is being shown during the NBA playoffs. I just saw it at halftime of the Chicago-Atlanta game on TNT. The video, which advocates against bullying, is reaching a demographic heavy [...]
Video: Andrew Bynum deserves 20-game suspension, Lakers should cut him tomorrow
I’ve only been watching professional basketball for about 30 years, so I can’t speak about the whole history of basketball. But Los Angeles Laker Andrew Bynum’s flagrant, intentional foul on Dallas Maverick J.J. Barea in the final quarter of Game 4 of their series was, as commentator Mike Tirico said, “one of the biggest bush-league [...]
Celtics and Lakers down, did LeBron’s “decision” signal changing of the guard?
The top two NBA franchises for several years have been the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics. Now both teams are down, 0-2. While the Celtics had won their first three games against the LeBron James and the Miami Heat this season, they’ve lost their far more important last three games against them. The [...]
Video: Grant Hill, Jared Dudley speak out against homophobia, address the issue directly
GLSEN has released footage of their ‘Think B4 You Speak’ shoot with Phoenix Suns Grant Hill and Jared Dudley (video after the jump). And what a statement. While the Lakers PSA on the issue buried sexual orientation, these two NBA players talk directly about homophobia and how it affects gay people. Hill says in the [...]
Which league will have the first out player?
We’ve said for years the NHL is the most likely to have the first active openly gay pro athlete in the U.S., and it seems someone at AfterElton agrees. In a lengthy article chronicling many gay sports stories over the years, they’ve also come to the conclusion that the NFL is the least likely to [...]
Grant Hill, Jared Dudley, NBA take a stand against insensitive language
On the same day Kobe Bryant’s gay epithet hit the airwaves, two NBA players were cutting a PSA for GLSEN. Phoenix Suns Grant Hill and Jared Dudley filmed the spot for GLSEN and the NBA’s “Think Before You Speak” campaign (the irony of Kobe’s comment is rich). ABC15 caught up with Hill at the PSA [...]