{"id":341718,"date":"2025-12-11T21:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T21:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/341718\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T21:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T21:53:08","slug":"former-nba-player-jason-collins-announces-he-has-stage-4-brain-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/341718\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NBA player Jason Collins announces he has Stage 4 brain cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NBA player Jason Collins announced that he is undergoing treatment for Stage 4 glioblastoma<\/a> in an interview with ESPN\u2019s Ramona Shelburne that was released Thursday. Glioblastoma is one of the most severe forms of brain cancer.<\/p>\n

Collins, who played for six teams in a 13-year career, came out in 2013 as the first openly gay active player in NBA history.<\/p>\n

His family announced in September that he was dealing with a brain tumor, but no additional details were provided. In his conversation with Shelburne, Collins pointed out that his family respected his wishes to wait until he was able to speak about his condition. He said he began feeling symptoms this past summer, and in August, he found himself unable to pack for a trip to the US Open. A CT scan revealed a brain tumor and Stage 4 glioblastoma.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to my family, in hours, my mental clarity, short-term memory and comprehension disappeared \u2014 turning into an NBA player\u2019s version of Dory from \u2018Finding Nemo,’\u201d Collins said. \u201cOver the next few weeks, we would find out just how bad it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins\u2019 tumor cannot be safely operated on. He has undergone radiation treatment and also taken a drug called Avastin to stop the growth of the tumor.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause my tumor is unresectable, going solely with the \u2018standard of care\u2019 \u2014 radiation and TMZ \u2014 the average prognosis is only 11 to 14 months,\u201d Collins said. \u201cIf that\u2019s all the time I have left, I\u2019d rather spend it trying a course of treatment that might one day be a new standard of care for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins said he wanted to approach his diagnosis in a similar way to how he came out as gay \u2014 on his own terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t worried it would leak before the story came out, because I trusted the people I told,\u201d Collins said. \u201cAnd guess what? Nothing leaked. I got to tell my own story, the way I wanted to. And now I can honestly say, the past 12 years since have been the best of my life. Your life is so much better when you just show up as your true self, unafraid to be your true self, in public or private. This is me. This is what I\u2019m dealing with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing up in Southern California, Collins and his twin brother, Jarron, committed to play college ball at Stanford. After four years with the Cardinal from 1997-2001, including an All-American senior season, Collins was a first-round pick of the Houston Rockets in 2001. He went on to play eight years for the New Jersey (and later Brooklyn) Nets and played for six teams over his 13 seasons. He retired in 2014.<\/p>\n

In his interview with Shelburne, the 47-year-old described a scary fall at home in Los Angeles, just a week before his hospital visit. Collins was determined not to be found on the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I could think while I was down there was, \u2018This is not how you\u2019re going to find me. I\u2019m not going to be like Elvis on the toilet,\u2019\u201d Collins said. \u201cIf something goes bad here, this is not how you\u2019re going to find me. I\u2019m going to figure out how to solve this puzzle. If I don\u2019t panic, I will figure this out. I will get myself up.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re reading this now because I eventually got myself up and figured it out. Anyone who knows me knows not to underestimate me on this, either.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NBA player Jason Collins announced that he is undergoing treatment for Stage 4 glioblastoma in an interview…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[7218,64,63,5997,2331,590,85,65948],"class_list":{"0":"post-341718","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-atlanta-hawks","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-brooklyn-nets","12":"tag-culture","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-stanford-cardinal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}