Jason Collins Just Became The NBA’s First Openly Gay Player, And The Internet Is Already Insufferable
You know what? For one shining, glorious moment this morning, I actually thought we might get through a sports cycle without some history-making, pearl-clutching, soul-searching national conversation. Silly me. Because Jason Collins, a 34-year-old journeyman center who has spent his entire career being the basketball equivalent of a solid B-minus in an AP History class, just decided to drop the biggest non-shock of the decade.
The man wrote a first-person piece for *Sports Illustrated* where he came out as gay. Congratulations, Jason. You’re the first active player in any of the four major American sports leagues to do it. You’re a pioneer. You’re a trailblazer. You’re also, apparently, the only person in America who hadn’t already figured this out by the time you were playing for the Nets.
Look, I’m not here to kick a man while he’s down. Coming out is a deeply personal thing, and in a locker room culture that’s about as progressive as a 1950s country club, it takes guts. I get it. I’m not a monster. But can we please, for the love of all that is holy, stop pretending this is the emotional equivalent of landing on the moon? This is a 34-year-old backup center who averaged 1.1 points per game last season. He’s not LeBron. He’s not even Kyle Korver. He’s the guy who gets fouled in the final seconds of a blowout because the other team wants to see if he can hit a free throw without crying.
But no. We can’t just let this be a guy living his truth and moving on with his life. Oh, no. We have to have a national holiday. We have to have ESPN dedicate an entire “First Take” segment to it, where Skip Bayless will somehow find a way to blame this for the downfall of the Chicago Bulls’ defense. We have to have every single Twitter personality, from the washed-up rapper to the guy who still thinks “Benghazi” is a gotcha, weigh in with their hot takes.
The reaction has been exactly what you’d expect from a country that still can’t decide if we should be celebrating or clutching our pearls. On one side, you have the “allies” who are acting like Collins just cured cancer, world hunger, and solved the Pac-12’s officiating problems all in one fell swoop. They’re posting rainbow flags on their Facebook pages, tagging the NBA in their tweets, and talking about how “brave” and “courageous” he is. It’s nauseating. You didn’t do anything, Chad. You just retweeted a *Sports Illustrated* article. You’re not the one who has to shower with a bunch of sweaty dudes for a living. Calm down.
On the other side, you have the predictable outrage mob. The folks who are convinced that this is the final nail in the coffin of “traditional masculinity” and that the NBA is now officially a safe space for… well, for everything they hate. They’re the ones who are going to say “I’m not homophobic, but” and then proceed to say the most homophobic thing you’ve ever heard. They’ll bring up the “distraction” angle, as if a guy who played 38 games last year is somehow a distraction to anything other than the scoreboard operator.
And then you have the third group, the group I’m in: the cynical, exhausted middle. We’re the ones who are just tired. Tired of the performative outrage, tired of the performative allyship, and tired of pretending that a 34-year-old backup center coming out is going to change the world. It’s not. It’s a guy on a bad team, coming out at the end of his career, probably because he knows he’s about to be out of the league anyway. That’s not cynicism, that’s just math. He’s a free agent. He’s 34. He’s a role player. He’s not going to suddenly become a starter because he likes dudes.
The real story here, the one everyone’s missing, is that this is a PR masterstroke. Collins knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s not coming out in the middle of the season when he’s on a contender, hoping to ride a wave of goodwill to a championship. He’s doing it in the offseason, when he’s a free agent, and he’s just guaranteed himself another contract. Any team that signs him now gets a free PR win. They get to say “We support diversity” and “We’re proud of our inclusive culture” and they get a guy who can foul people and grab a rebound. It’s the ultimate hustle.
But let’s be real. The actual on-court impact of this is exactly zero. The NBA is a league where guys like him are a dime a dozen. He’s a big body who can set a screen and clog the paint. He’s not changing the game. He’s not going to make the league more “open” or “accepting” in any meaningful way. The locker room culture isn’t going to change overnight. The same guys who are now tweeting their support are the same guys who would have called him a slur behind his back three years ago. It’s a PR statement, not a revolution.
And the worst part? The discourse. Oh, the discourse. We’re going to be subjected to weeks of this. “What does this mean for the future of the NBA?” “Will other players come out?” “Is this a distraction for the Celtics?” (No, the Celtics are a distraction for the Celtics, they blew a 3-2 lead to the Lakers in 2010, that’s a distraction). We’re going to have think pieces about “the burden of representation” and “the intersectionality of sports and politics” and every other buzz
Final Thoughts
As a journalist who’s covered locker rooms where silence was once the ultimate currency, I’d argue Collins’ true legacy isn’t the statistical footnote of his career, but the way he weaponized the mundane—showing up, rebounding, and being a teammate—to dismantle a decade of toxic hypermasculinity in one quiet announcement. His coming out wasn't a disruption of the game, but a reclamation of it, proving that the burden of acceptance rests on the shoulders of the league’s culture, not the individual player’s courage. Ultimately, the irony is that a journeyman center taught the sport’s biggest stars more about leadership than any championship ring ever could.