In his thousands-of-words-long All-Star Game recap, Bill Simmons gives the best analysis yet of the Amaechi/Hardaway flap:
[Thumbs down] to Tim Hardaway, who committed career suicide and earned a spot in the "Surreal Life: The Bigots!" house with Michael Richards, John Rocker and Isaiah Washington, then had the gall to pull the old "I didn't mean it" routine three days later. Not only were gay people insulted, not only was anyone with an IQ over 75 insulted, not only did this triple the odds for a second John Amaechi book, not only did every columnist write the same anti-Hardaway column for three straight days, but nobody's talking about the real victims here -- anyone who ever splurged for $300 on Hardaway's throwback Warriors jersey. Might as well set that thing on fire.Simmons also ponders whether David Stern is "the most popular Jewish senior citizen on the planet," now that Rodney Dangerfield is dead. But what about Jackie Mason? Jerry Stiller? Al Goldstein?