On the NBA | Anti-gay comments find no backing

LAS VEGAS - In a sport in which teamwork is paramount, former NBA guard Tim Hardaway finds himself alone in the backcourt, having given up his dribble, with his ex-teammates running away from him instead of toward the ball.

Hardaway's incendiary comments last week about gays have made him persona non grata at All-Star Weekend, both in body and in spirit. The league, looking to defuse an explosive situation before tonight's All-Star Game at Thomas and Mack Center, uninvited him from participating in several events locally this weekend. And no one was helping Hardaway out of the hole he'd dug for himself.

"I think, probably, there's a player or two out there who believes what he believes," Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash said. "That probably would be fair of every cross section of society. But in general, I think he spoke for himself. I don't think you'd catch many guys feeling that way."

Sacramento Kings co-owner Gavin Maloof said Friday that if a player came to him and said he hated gay people and didn't want to be around them, as Hardaway did Wednesday on a Miami radio show, he would not want that player on his team.

"What he said was uncalled for," Maloof said. "What he said was wrong. I'm sure he apologized for it, but the damage has been done. He should have never said that. Because we don't want to be judged by race, creed, color, sexual preference. I mean, people are people. And that's the way it should be."

Hardaway's comments threatened to overshadow the NBA's first All-Star Game in this city, a weeklong lovefest that has helped ease concerns about the overwhelming influence of gambling. NBA commissioner David Stern, who has resisted overtures in the past about putting a team here permanently, this week said he would acquiesce if owners wanted to come up with a compromise system that would remove any local NBA team from the betting lines at area casinos.

The league didn't mind that debate. But it doesn't want to go down the road lined by Hardaway.

The debate on gay players in the NBA began with former player John Amaechi's disclosure this month that he is gay but didn't feel comfortable enough while an active player to make his sexual preference public.

While a few players expressed some general concern about playing with a hypothetical gay teammate, Hardaway is the only current or former player to express outright hostility toward gays.

"When you have any teammate, you have to accept them for who they are," Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas said. "If they're trying to win a championship, that's all that should matter. . . . It's not [bad for] the league. It's like if something goes wrong with one player, it's emphasized on the whole league. It's just that one player."

Still, two players - Miami Heat center Shaquille O'Neal and Cleveland Cavaliers guard Damon Jones - were more nuanced in their criticism of Hardaway. O'Neal said that while he would come to the defense of any teammate who was ridiculed for being gay, he also thinks Hardaway is being subjected to political correctness.

"On really sensitive issues, in the time that we live in, you have to be politically correct," O'Neal said. "Even if that's not what you're thinking, you have to really be politically correct. And he obviously wasn't politically correct in his statements. Maybe that's how he felt, but he wasn't politically correct. My view is that I've always been taught not to judge people. To each his own."

Jones said Hardaway would have been better served remaining silent on the issue. (Former Sixer Allen Iverson concurred to the point where he had no comment on Hardaway.)

"Those were tough comments to make," said Jones, a participant in Saturday's all-star shoot-out. "Whenever you're talking about social issues, anything that has to do with anything personal, you just don't make statements like that. . . . Whatever preferences you have, or whatever ideas you have in that situation, you keep it to yourself."

Many players said that today's generation of athletes is more comfortable with the idea of a gay player than their predecessors.

"Maybe 10 years ago," Nash said. "But in our locker room [now]? I think guys are over it. Guys are like, 'I don't care what you do.' I don't know about other locker rooms. I don't know if it's peer pressure is contagious or just being in the right place in the right time to get that type of virulence. But in the Phoenix Suns' locker room, it's not like that."