The news this week that Rick Welts (pictured), president and CEO of the NBA's Phoenix Suns, has come out of the closet was greeted the way stories like this are handled in the 21st century: With a shrug, a moment of "oh, that's interesting," and the back-of-the-brain acknowledgement that we're one step closer to a day when the news of any prominent person's sexual orientation will no longer be newsworthy.

But Welts' acknowledgement again raise the question: Will an NBA player ever reveal himself as gay?

John Amaechi, a former Utah Jazz player who went public about being gay after he retired from the league, says that time has not yet come.

"There’s a lot of pressure to stay in the closest so that you don’t cause any kind of uproar," Amaechi said in an interview with Cleveland radio station ESPN 850 WKNR (transcribed by Sports Radio Interviews). "I spoke to David Stern recently and I know that he wants to make this league and embracing place for everybody, but it’s very difficult to control some of the old-fashioned thinking from some of the people in charge.”

Amaechi again described the discomfort he felt while playing for the Jazz, particularly from the team's late owner, Larry Miller.

Amaechi recalled an incident when Miller "ran into our locker room when the film ‘Brokeback Mountain’ came out and screamed at everybody that he wasn’t going to let that film play on his cinemas and he happened to own most of the cinemas in Salt Lake City. That’s a not too subtle way of letting everybody know where he stands on the position of homosexuality and it’s not the kind of thing that inspires you to then stand up and say yes I’m gay. I absolutely was convinced that at that point I would’ve lost my job."

(Amaechi's memory of the incident is secondhand at best. "Brokeback Mountain" opened in Utah theaters in January 2006. Amaechi was traded to the Houston Rockets - though he never played a game for them - in 2003, and soon after retired from the NBA.)

But the moment when a major-league athlete can come out without fear of retribution - from fans, teammates or the league - will happen, opines Deadspin.com editor Barry Petchesky, when a superstar player says he's gay:

"Retired athletes, college athletes, journeyman players, front office people, they're not good enough. They foster an atmosphere of acceptance that simply can not and will not exist until 1) a current professional athlete comes out in the middle of his career and 2 )that athlete is good."

Petchesky quotes the redoubtable Charles Barkley, who in different interviews said, "[athletes] only hate guys that can't play. ... I'd rather have a gay guy who can play than a straight guy who can't play."