12/30/24
February 23, 2014
Nets Sign First Openly Gay NBA Player: Journeyman center Jason Collins has signed a 10-day contract with the Brooklyn Nets and will make history as the first openly gay player for an NBA team when he takes the court in a game. The Nets play the Lakers tonight at 9 p.m Eastern. Collins came out in a Sports Illustrated cover story last April, but was not signed by a team until now.
posted by Etrigan to basketball at 04:39 PM - 8 comments
It's not (necessarily) a publicity stunt -- 10-days are so common there are rules in the Collective Bargaining Agreement about them. They're primarily used as short-term replacement contracts for injured or otherwise inactive players, but they're also used for midseason tryouts to see whether a player meshes well. The NYT did a story on them a couple of years ago.
posted by Etrigan at 09:45 AM on February 24, 2014
Five fouls in 10.5 minutes? Is that a typo?
posted by NoMich at 12:21 PM on February 24, 2014
The Nets know Collins well - so the 10-day contract is likely for two reasons - one, given Glen Davis and/or Ron Artest have recently hit the open market (and perhaps because the Nets had an interest in Davis which only today they seem to have lost out on), there's no sense tying yourself to a guy with a fairly defined ceiling when someone else might come up in the next three weeks (waived, released, or via trade) - and two, to make sure that the layoff hasn't impacted his ability to contribute on the court.
posted by dfleming at 12:22 PM on February 24, 2014
Fair enough. All the better if it's plausible to think that they would be doing the same thing if he wasn't gay.
posted by bender at 12:35 PM on February 24, 2014
Five fouls in 10.5 minutes? Is that a typo?
Not necessarily. That's pretty much what the Celtics signed Collins to do last year (or the season previous, I can't remember when it was).
posted by yerfatma at 12:45 PM on February 24, 2014
All the better if it's plausible to think that they would be doing the same thing if he wasn't gay.
Here is the list of transactions in the NBA this season. Since 10-day contracts were not available until the first business day after January 5th, you just need to look at January and February.
A quick text search shows that the phrase "Signed to 10-day Contract" appears 23 times this season (up to February 24th).
It's pretty common.
posted by grum@work at 01:33 PM on February 24, 2014
Signing players to 10 day contracts is what keeps Danny Ainge off the street during the late winter months. I don't know if it's always been common or if it's since the last couple of collective bargaining agreements.
posted by yerfatma at 09:03 AM on February 25, 2014
I do not follow NBA basketball. Are 10-day contracts a common thing, or is this more likely something of a publicity stunt. Not that I have an objection if it is, but I was just curious.