Thursday, February 08, 2007

The NBA is so gay

Recently retired NBA center John Amaechi gave a press conference yesterday to announce he was coming out of the closet. In his upcoming book about his experience of being a gay man in the NBA, Amaechi talks about his time with the Utah Jazz calling Jazz owner Larry Miller a "bigot," former teammate Karl Malone a “xenophobe” while also saying that coach Jerry Sloan "hated" him. And I guess he finds Andrei Kirilenko cute (don’t we all?), referring to him only by the pet name “Malinka” throughout the entire book.

Reaction around the NBA was mixed. NBA commissioner David Stern dodged the issue: "We have a very diverse league. The question at the NBA is always, 'Have you got game?' That's it, end of inquiry."

Others, like Philadelphia Sixers forward Shavlik Randolph were more frank, "As long as you don't bring your gayness on me I'm fine." Randolph’s teammate Steven Hunter also weighed in saying that, "Nowadays it's proven that people can live double lives. I watch a lot of TV, so I see a lot of sick perverted stuff about married men running around with gay guys and all types of foolishness."

Hunter’s comments might seem a little intolerant, but they’re not. When Hunter talks about gay guys running around foolish I’m sure he’s concerned about their wellbeing, because he knows that gay men have a much higher risk of contracting AIDS. And by higher risk I mean that unless Ameachi wants to end up like Freddy Mercury he should avoid using the same toilet seat as Magic Johnson.

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