Ryan Resch, 29, works in basketball operations for the Suns, where he serves as vice president of strategy and evaluation for the Suns and essentially functions as the front office’s chief-of-staff. He attends to the big-picture responsibilities of team-building and runs staff-wide meetings alongside general manager James Jones, who has been a mentor to him. This past winter, Resch came out to Jones, then the rest of the Suns’ staff. He is the first openly gay person in league history to work basketball operations in an NBA front office.

How did you first come out to the Suns? Ryan Resch: My thought was, ‘If I’m gonna do this, then I’m going to do it the right way,’ and I wasn’t going to hide behind it any longer. I told [Phoenix general manager] James [Jones] in my office randomly one day, after practice. We were playing Miami at home and I wanted to bring somebody I was seeing at the time to the game and have him sit with me in our executive suite. And I obviously can’t do that unless you tell the other executives whom you’re bringing. In true James fashion — he has been referred to as the best teammate of all time by several of his former teammates — it was amongst the most nondescript conversations we’ve ever had. By that, I mean there was a beauty in how uneventful it was, because he was just so accepting and so generous and kind about it from the jump.