NBA EXECUTIVE COMES OUT

NBA executive Rick Welts, president of the Phoenix Suns, has come out. He was in the closet for more than 40+ years professionally. Ahh, yeah. 40+years.

We aren't really feeling this one. He was a scared individual. Gotta have that inner strength and chutzpah to come out and just fuck what other people think about you. Then, carve your own way in life afterwards.

Pulling a Lance Bass and Ricky Martin, coming out after the fact. After having the career. After making the money.

It takes real courage to come out before all that. To be against all the odds. Let the chips fall where they may. When you come out early, the people that don't like you at that moment, won't ever like you later on. Plus, you don't need them. Find the courage within yourself to say: I don't need those negative people, I need positive people that understand me and are going to support me then move on with life with that game plan.

We understand coming out in the sports profession as an executive or an athlete is hard.

But waiting 40+ years to come out, come on! The one positive we see out of all of this is the gay youth. Youngsters can see this and can say: I can be gay and a sport executive. Just don't take hiding in the closet for decades as a positive. That is a scared coward.

We can't get over the 40+ years... come on.

It's not like people already guessed/assumed/knew. People are smarter than Welts gave them credit.

Same in real life, if your waiting 40+ years to come out, people probably have already guessed and/or assumed. You are not fooling anyone. You are just kidding yourself and hiding. Cheating yourself out of a life that could be fuller, richer and prosperous in relationships with people.

David Stern, the commissioner of the National Basketball Association, did not find the discussion with Mr. Welts awkward or even surprising; he had long known that his friend was gay, but never felt that he had license to broach the subject.

Mr. Welts’s final stop before his public announcement was to a high-end restaurant perched on the side of Camelback Mountain, just outside Phoenix, for lunch with Steve Nash. A few weeks earlier, a mutual friend had given Mr. Nash the heads-up about what Mr. Welts wanted to discuss. Mr. Nash was surprised; he thought that everyone already knew that Mr. Welts was gay.