Barnett e-mails to say he’s on official Sullivan heart-ache watch. With good reason, but you can’t knock Sully for objecting to this; it’s ugly stuff and shocking to hear how casual Hardaway is in admitting to his prejudice. People wondered, rightly, how that crack about hanging someone upside down with a fork in him seemed to come so easily to Michael Richards’s lips. The same might be asked of TH vis-a-vis his nonchalance.

And it will be asked, although not too insistently. Hardaway may be a homophobe but he’s a minority homophobe, so his moral authority at this point is highly “nuanced.” On the other hand, Isaiah Washington’s moral authority didn’t shield him from mandatory deprogramming when he dropped the (other) F-bomb. The question is whether the double standard Ace writes about is diminishing or whether blacks have simply slipped a bit in the hierarchy of persecuted groups and Washington/Hardaway made the mistake of hating on people above them in the totem pole.

Note: the clip has been slightly edited.

He’s already apologized, although I’ll leave you to wonder whether that has to do with the NBA allegedly having suspended him from league events.