The locker-room issue is salient here.
We have separate mens and womens locker rooms so that people in a state of undress are not the subject of unwanted sexual attention and sexual appraisal. Sharing a locker-room with someone who finds you sexually interesting, but in whom you have no interest, is odious. Add this, even in the abstract, to a firmly held moral conviction that homoeroticism is wrong, and it is easy to see how someone might lapse over into hatred.
"Sharing a locker-room with someone who finds you sexually interesting, but in whom you have no interest, is odious."
Bull's eye. Hardaway's aversion to the idea of a homosexual teammate would be normal for a professonal athelete for the same reason that the presence of openly gay men in the military is proven to be devastating to morale. It means taking showers with them. The criticism is just cheap talk by one more sleazy sports announcer.