Not to Mention...

Thought I was done for the day? Please...

- A few more thoughts on Tim Hardaway before everybody beats this story to death. It really was only a matter of time before something like this happened. People are acting shocked by this, but did you really not see it coming? After Amaechi came out, any interview with an athlete over the ensuing few weeks was going to include a question about Amaechi or gay athletes in general. When you last played organized sports - high school I'm guessing - how would you have characterized most of your teammates in football, basketball, baseball, soccer, whatever: homophobic or not homophobic? Exactly. Add in the fact that the overwhelming majority of professional athletes are pretty fucking stupid and you get the Tim Hardaway Situation. Some athletes were legitimately behind Amaechi (rimshot), some were savvy enough to duck the questions or give meaningless, non-controversial answers, some gave stupid, but mostly harmless answers (LeBron, Shavlik Randolph), but you knew that somebody was eventually going to say something really dumb given the rampant homophobia and stupidity of professional athletes. And Timmy just beat the other morons to the punch.

- The second half of the question was undoubtedly the best part of the whole thing. Hardaway starts out by saying he would distance himself from the gay player and not really support him. Then LeBatard says his comments are blatantly bigoted and gives him a chance to back off the comments or explain them a little further. THEN, in the most ridiculous part, Timmy takes that opportunity to emphatically reinforce what he just got done saying. Almost like he thought to himself, "I wonder if everybody fully understands what I just said, let me say this in no uncertain terms: I hate gay people. I'm homophobic." I love that he thought he needed to make himself more clear, as though his original comments didn't paint the picture clearly enough. Unbelievable stuff.

- How bout Hardaway's "apology," imploring us to shift our focus away from his comments and focus on the troops and the war in Iraq? Heartfelt, contrite... these are the words that come to mind.

- OK, enough of that shit. How bout them Celts last night? A bittersweet victory for the blokes in green. Obviously, we can use all the losses we can get, but with the all-time losing streak staring them down, I guess I'll take the W. They're almost definitely going to lose their next five games on the upcoming road trip out West, so if they couldn't take down a Bucks squad without Redd or Mo Williams, 24 consecutive losses would've been a distinct possibility. What's actually kind of troubling is that the team was 12-20 with Pierce and an alarming 9-9 (9-9!) when Pierce and Wally played together. Somebody needs to break these two up. None of this winning crap, OK?

- Of course, all bets are off if we are led to believe this is true. Fair warning to C's fans: I just about fell out of my chair after seeing this one.