Former NBA player comes out. (UPDATED)

From the Sports Business Daily, via Sports on My Mind, comes this interesting story:

FORMER NBAer COMING OUT? At agent LEIGH STEINBERG?s annual Super Bowl party, publicist HOWARD BRAGMAN ?told several media members one of his clients, a former NBA player, is coming out of the closet … in a book being released on Valentine?s Day.? Bragman indicated that the player has ?been out of the league for ?about three years? and that he was not a star player.? WNBA Comets F SHERYL SWOOPES, another of Bragman?s clients, ?made a similar revelation last year? (BLOGS.DAILYSOUTHTOWN.com, 2/3).

Sports on My Mind thinks that it might be John Amaechi, a former player with the Orlando Magic teams from the early part of this decade. Other rumors indicate Christian Laettner. The Big Lead linked to this comment at the NBA Fanhouse, which — while completely and utterly unsubstantiated — also indicates that it is Amaechi. Either way, whoever it is just got uninvited to the Indianapolis Colts victory parade. And Mike Ditka might hunt him down and tell him to “get the hell out” of the country.

UPDATE: The rumors are true; John Amaechi will “announce publicly for the first time that he is gay on an episode of ESPN’s “Outside The Lines” to air Feb. 13… His book, published by ESPN Books, “Man In The Middle,” in which he chronicles his NBA career and directly addresses the travails of being a closeted professional athlete, will be released the following week.”

Comments from Amaechi, cited by Outsports.com:

“Those grumpy social conservatives who continue to insist that gay life is lonely and unhappy have obviously never met my friends … By the end of my second Utah season, I was practically daring reporters to take the bait and out me … But it never happened. My sexuality, I felt, had become an open secret, which was fine by me. I’d left enough open to interpretation that suspicions were gaining momentum.”