The Philly Inquirer’s David Aldridge notes that John Amaechi (above) is receiving “more attention than any other player with career averages of 6.2 points and 2.6 rebounds,” while reminding us that Sixers Shavlik Randolph and Steven Hunter probably weren’t alone in their deep thoughts on the matter.

An Eastern Conference general manager who did not want to be identified said that if he received incontrovertible evidence that one of his players was gay, he would try to keep it in-house.

“We’d have to have a team meeting,” he said. “I would address it with the player and let him know I thought we should have a team meeting. But if the player didn’t want to come forward, I wouldn’t bring it up” to the team.

Another GM, who also did not want to be named, said he wouldn’t do anything.

“You hope your guys are mature enough to deal with it,” he said. “This isn’t a surprise to anybody. Why would we be any different from any other slice of society? It’s basically 400 young men who represent an age group, and we’ve got every societal issue that everyone else in that age group has.”

For months, an unsubstantiated (and, therefore, unreportable) rumor has circulated around the league concerning the sexuality of a well-known player – and not for the first time. One former teammate of this player said recently that the player’s teammates had believed for years that the player was gay.

In this particular case, however, the player supposedly was not coming forward willingly but was close to being outed by a former male acquaintance with – you guessed it – a book to sell.

One prominent player agent who did not want to be named said there was no way he would encourage that particular player to come out.

“He shouldn’t say anything,” said the agent, who does not represent the player. “I really don’t think it serves him any purpose. You’re talking about a lot of intolerance with these ignorant ballplayers. I don’t think it’s worth it for him to do that. I think he should keep it private… . What does he gain by that?”

The New York Post’s Elizabeth Wolff does a capable job of stalking tracking down Isiah Thomas’ 21-year old son, Marc Dones, whom Zeke has supposedly ignored over the years save for court mandated child support.

“I haven’t been to a Knicks game and don’t plan on it,” says Dones. A shame, too, as there’s a lot of budding talent during those halftime kiddie competitions.