Torrey Craig of the Phoenix Suns has been publicly silent about his tweets from a decade ago saying “I hate gay dudes” and retweeting a post about gay men needing “a bullet” in their head.
Outsports reached out to the Suns for comment from the team and Craig. The Suns in a statements seem to have denounced Craig’s tweets as “discrimination” in a tepid response sent to Outsports:
“Suns Legacy Partners, LLC, which includes the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury, stands with the LGBTQIA community to celebrate equality and denounce discrimination of any kind,” Suns spokesperson Dean Stoyer shared with Outsports.
The tweets got attention when a young gay fan of the NBA searched through the Twitter feeds of dozens of current NBA players, finding that at least 40 of them had shared messages that would rate anywhere between a one and a one million on the John Rocker scale of homophobia.
Craig’s messages were the worst of the worst.
“If someone talks about putting a bullet in someone’s head, that’s beyond ‘I hate gay people,’” high school basketball coach Anthony Nicodemo, who is gay, said. “That’s hard to grasp. It makes you wonder, has someone like that really changed?”
There were also dozens of other tweets by Craig with various references to “gay,” “no homo” and other problematic messages.
These messages have been deleted, so it’s clear Craig is aware of them and has so far chosen to not address them publicly.
Craig, who was 20 at the time of these tweets, has oscillated between appearances in the NBA and other lower-level men’s professional basketball leagues. He’s previously been on the rosters of the Denver Nuggets, Milwaukee Bucks and Indiana Pacers.
In the Suns’ win over the Orlando Magic Tuesday night, Craig played 20 minutes.
The Suns are currently the top seed in the Western Conference of the NBA.
The NBA and players union have been silent, despite NBAPA President CJ McCollum tweeting “no homo” because, of course, being associated with gay people is just the worst.
Until he speaks publicly about these tweets and updates fans on his thoughts about the LGBTQ community, Craig may be seen by some as the face of homophobia in the NBA.
