Eventually — and who knows when — a professional athlete will announce that he’s gay while he’s still playing. And that’s why what happened with Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah was, in a twisted way, a good thing.
Noah called a fan a gay slur in Sunday’s loss at Miami. For that he was fined $50,000, half of what Lakers star Kobe Bryant was fined for calling a ref the same thing.
It’s a tricky issue. What words deserve to draw fines?
But the NBA is a business worried about its image, and Noah’s words countered its goals. Remember, Grant Hill was among the Phoenix players who starred in a commercial opposing the use of gay slurs shortly before Suns president Rick Welts announced he was gay.
But the more this issue is brought to the public’s attention and discussed, the more it paves the way for the inevitable.
