Jason Collins, joueur de basketball gai, de retour dans la NBA

Jason Collins deviendra le premier joueur ouvertement gai du sport professionnel lorsqu'il sautera sur le terrain avec les Nets de Brooklyn. Collins était sans contrat depuis l'an dernier.

 To be fair, gay or straight, Collins might have been out of the league this season anyway. Collins -- as the aforementioned numbers indicate -- is in the winter of his career. He can still defend and sets screens like a brick wall, but those aren't good enough reasons to fork over $1.4 million -- the veterans minimum, a portion of which is picked up by the NBA -- for a player with no real future to sit on the end of the bench. Second-round picks can do that.

 But Collins stayed sharp, stayed positive, stayed in shape and now he is back now, with the Nets -- an organization he played 6 ½ seasons for when the franchise was located in New Jersey -- playing with Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce (his teammates in Boston last season) and for Jason Kidd, his point guard in New Jersey. It's an ideal situation for Collins, who friends say declined training camp invitations because he wanted to go to a situation where he could contribute. The Nets didn't sign Collins for the publicity. They signed him because Glen Davis turned them down and they needed another big body for the stretch run. Collins impressed Nets officials during a workout in L.A. with assistant coach Eric Hughes, particularly with his conditioning. It was a basketball decision, the only kind Collins ever wanted made about him.

 Collins is back, which transitions to that question that someday we will wonder why we ever had to ask: Is the NBA ready for him? "I think it's ready," Jazz forward Richard Jefferson, Collins' friend and former teammate in New Jersey, told SI.com. "I won't say it's not a big deal, because it takes courage to come out. But I don't care what anyone does in his off time. Jason is a great guy; there are a ton of bad guys in the NBA. I don't care what it is they do, either. The only time is if it affects me as an individual or affects us winning. Dennis Rodman was one of the most absurd players in the world, but he helped [the Bulls] win games, so Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen respected him. What he does is his business."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nba/news/20140223/jason-collins-signs-brooklyn-nets/?eref=sihp