LeBron James on John Amaechi

Grant Hill was gracious and eloquent at the beginning of the main AP and ESPN.com story, so it's not like all athletes looked like idiots. The funniest part of the story is that Shavlik Randolph said he didn't want to be hit on by Amaechi. I bet Amaechi's man is much better looking.

 

James didn't say he wouldn't shower with a homosexual teammate. He said a good teammate would tell the rest of the players if he was gay.

I don't like the way he said it, and I don't really agree with him, but I think the reaction here is a bit overdramatic. Unfair as it may be, homosexuality is an issue that can cause some discomfort. And right or not, most of us just assume people are straight until we find out otherwise. So if James thinks teammates should know, he's entitled to that opinion.

Honestly, I'm impressed he's not making goofy comments about gayness rubbing off on him. I had never met somebody that was openly gay until college and it was a learning experience. It is probably a learning experience James has not had going from high school right to the pros.

 

Is he really that off base? When one of my wife's best friends came out, her and her friends all had a temper tantrum at first, among themselves, because they felt she had not shared something very important to her and very vital to her being with the people who were supposed to share an unbreakable trust. And this is the most liberal woman I know.

 

Homosexuality is an issue that can cause some discomfort?

That's why liberals keep slamming the heads of those that feel that way that they are simply homophobic and wrong.


Most of us just assume people are straight until we find out otherwise.

Dumb bastards we are, assuming anything as journalists.

There. I took care of the left-wing response to that, predictable as it is.

 

Grant Hill comes from a very different background from James. He grew up with the guidance of a former pro athlete, I'm sure learning a good bit about how to deal with the media.

He grew up in the Northern Virginia suburbs, not only an affluent area, but one that is extremely diverse and accepting of all manner of people.

And he went to college, which is as much a place of social learning as academic. And if I remember right, this particular issue came up while he was at Duke when Christian Laettner and a teammate (Brian Davis?) started rumors about themselves being gay lovers. Supposedly, it was a prank, but I don't remember all the details.

 

LeBron will be off the hook for these comments because those two dolts on the 76ers made much, much worse comments.

 

And it matters at all, why?
(Why is your waiter looking at you that way?)

 

That's an outstanding take on it.

If you ask me a question, and you don't like the answer, I didn't have to answer it in the first place.

What happens if LeBron looks at the questioner and issues a terse "no comment"? Is he in more or less trouble then?

 

People don't have a right to unchallenged ignorance just because they're willing to express it publicly. I'm neither happy nor sad that James said this. I just think it's dumb, and the fact that he was willing to say it doesn't mitigate that.

 

I think that's one of the all-time classic lines!

"If you're gay and you're not admitting that you are, then you are not trustworthy," James said.

I'll remember that one for the rest of my life.

 

If you don't want to know how the hot dogs are made, amigo...

 

Extremely off the point. If an athlete speaks, and what he says is ignorant, there's a certain obligation to point that out. The fact that he's willing to display his ignorance publicly doesn't mitigate that. I'm not going to give out brownie points for talking if what the guy says is nuts. Remember Steve Carlton? He wouldn't talk to anyone his whole career and then, when he finally did talk, he was raving about the Jews and the Gnomes of Zurich. Because he said it doesn't make it retroactively less stupid.