Rumors

Mike Curtis: Jason Kidd began his pregame press conference with a statement on his former teammate Jason Collins, who is battling Stage 4 brain cancer: "Just want to give a shoutout to Jason Collins. A teammate of mine. A friend of mine. I actually coached him in Brooklyn. Our prayers go out to him & his family. He's going to fight & beat this, just knowing the person he is. Our prayers go out to Big J."

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NBA on ESPN: Former NBA player, Jason Collins, was diagnosed with Stage 4 Glioblastoma this summer. Jason and his husband, Brunson, traveled to Singapore to try an experimental treatment that will give him more time. @ramonashelburne was able to sit down with him as he talks about his journey ❤️

x.com

Jason Collins: A few months ago, my family released a short statement saying I had a brain tumor. It was simple, but intentionally vague. They did that to protect my privacy while I was mentally unable to speak for myself and my loved ones were trying to understand what we were dealing with. But now it's time for people to hear directly from me. I have Stage 4 glioblastoma, one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer. It came on incredibly fast.

ESPN

In May I married the love of my life, Brunson Green, at a ceremony in Austin, Texas, that couldn't have been more perfect. In August, we were supposed to go to the US Open, just as every year, but when the car came to take us to the airport, I was nowhere near ready. And for the first time in decades, we missed the flight because I couldn't stay focused to pack. I had been having weird symptoms like this for a week or two, but unless something is really wrong, I'm going to push through. I'm an athlete. Something was really wrong, though. I was in the CT machine at UCLA for all of five minutes before the tech pulled me out and said they were going to have me see a specialist. I've had enough CTs in my life to know they last longer than five minutes and whatever the tech had seen on the first images had to be bad. According to my family, in hours, my mental clarity, short-term memory and comprehension disappeared -- turning into an NBA player's version of "Dory" from "Finding Nemo." Over the next few weeks we would find out just how bad it was.

ESPN

Because my tumor is unresectable, going solely with the "standard of care" -- radiation and TMZ -- the average prognosis is only 11 to 14 months. If that's all the time I have left, I'd rather spend it trying a course of treatment that might one day be a new standard of care for everyone. I'm fortunate to be in a financial position to go wherever in the world I need to go to get treatment. So if what I'm doing doesn't save me, I feel good thinking that it might help someone else who gets a diagnosis like this one day. After I came out, someone I really respect told me that my choice to live openly could help someone who I might never meet. I've held onto that for years. And if I can do that again now, then that matters.

ESPN

About a week before I went into the hospital, I fell upstairs at our house in Los Angeles. I couldn't figure out how to turn off this cooler we have on our bed. There's an app, but the tumor was clearly affecting my brain by then. So rather than use the app, I bent down, tried to unplug it from the wall and fell. I caught myself in a plank position and just stayed there. I couldn't figure out how to get myself up, how to put my knee down and balance to push myself up. I couldn't do that for some reason. That was very scary.

ESPN

Jason Collins: I have Stage 4 glioblastoma, one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer. It came on incredibly fast. In May I married the love of my life, Brunson Green, at a ceremony in Austin, Texas, that couldn't have been more perfect. In August, we were supposed to go to the US Open, just as every year, but when the car came to take us to the airport, I was nowhere near ready. And for the first time in decades, we missed the flight because I couldn't stay focused to pack. I had been having weird symptoms like this for a week or two, but unless something is really wrong, I'm going to push through. I'm an athlete.

ESPN

Jason Collins, the 13-year NBA veteran player who became a league ambassador after his playing days — famously the first pro athlete to come out as gay while still playing in the NBA or any major American sports league — is battling a brain tumor, his family has announced. His family released this statement through the league: “NBA Ambassador and 13-year NBA veteran Jason Collins is currently undergoing treatment for a brain tumor. Jason and his family welcome your support and prayers and kindly ask for privacy as they dedicate their attention to Jason’s health and well-being.”

NBC Sports

Collins wrote the essay for Sports Illustrated, which was posted on April 29, 2013. It was the cover story for the magazine’s May 6 print edition. “We knew it was going to be online at 11 a.m. Eastern time,” Collins said. “I was living in Los Angeles at the time. There were people I felt should hear it from me first, so that weekend, there were a lot of phone calls that were being made.”

New York Times

About an hour before the story appeared, Collins was on the phone with then-NBA commissioner David Stern and then-deputy commissioner Adam Silver. “They were extremely supportive,” Collins said. “I couldn’t have done what I did without seeing what the leadership of the NBA was doing. When I first entered the NBA in 2001, players were allowed to use homophobic language without consequences. That changed in the mid-to-late 2000s. There started to be fines for using homophobic language. When I saw those fines being levied, especially with a minimum fine of $50,000 being implemented, that to me was a sign that NBA leadership has my back.”

New York Times

Former Nets player, and the first openly gay athlete in the NBA, Jason Collins married his longtime partner, Brunson Green, recently. The couple reportedly tied the knot over the Memorial Day weekend in a ceremony in Austin, Texas, after the two had been together for more than a decade.

New York Post

Jason Collins is a married man. The first publicly out active gay NBA player married his husband, film producer Brunson Green, over the weekend in Austin, Texas, where they now live. Collins and Green have been a couple for about a decade. They got engaged to marry, according to some people who say they were there, at the Los Angeles Lakers Pride Night in 2023.

OutSports.com

When you saw the Sports Illustrated article published, what were your immediate thoughts and feelings? Seeing yourself on the cover, seeing your words — everything. Jason Collins: My immediate thought was … great photo. (Laughs) Kwaku Alston was the photographer for that, and we took a lot of different photos. … But just the public response and outpouring of support — heck, even President Obama and the White House commented on it — that was really cool. This was 2013. What was the public reaction like following the announcement? And what’s the public reaction like now? Is there a compare/contrast going on? Jason Collins: I think for male athletes, it’s still (like it was). When female athletes come out, everyone is like, “OK, cool, go in.” But we’re still not there yet. We need more and more male athletes to step forward so that we can get to that day when after the game is over, everyone’s significant other is in the family room waiting for them along with everybody else’s, regardless of gender. We still have work to do with regards to male athletes.

The Athletic

Do you feel the NBA has made legitimate strides with equality, DEI procedures, human rights, LGBTQ+ rights, etc.? Jason Collins: Definitely. First, I think the WNBA is leading the way. You’ve got to give the women credit and acknowledge that. Right after the WNBA is the NBA, as far as supporting our athletes and encouraging our athletes to speak up. In the (2020) bubble, we changed the names on jerseys. (It was) not only with our words but with our actions and with our money. … There’s a lot wrapped into there through the NBA Foundation, great work that’s been done, but specifically with LGBTQ+ issues, being a league to march in the (NYC) Pride parade, moving the All-Star Game out of Charlotte, N.C., because of discriminatory legislation going on at the time — and that led to the governor getting voted out of office. There are ways the NBA and WNBA continue to lead, in my opinion, all of the sports leagues.

The Athletic