Ex-Miner Tim Hardaway’s $2M Mansion Bought By Heat After Tax Lien Filed

The Miami Heat has bailed out former star Tim Hardaway by buying his Miami mansion and clearing up a $120,000 federal tax debt, according to a report in the Detroit News.

Hardaway, 44, ran into tax trouble in June despite being paid more than $46.6 million during his NBA career, according to the report. The IRS filed a tax lien against his property and the bill listed his 7,542-square-foot mansion in suburban Miami.

Hardaway, who played college ball at UTEP, recently visited El Paso during the Don Haskins Basketball Invitational where he and other Miners were honored.

On Sept. 3, three months after the lien was filed, Hardaway sold the mansion to Miami Heat Limited Partnership, which owns the Miami Heat.

According to the report, the Heat paid $1.985 million, according to public records. The Heat is trying to sell the five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bath estate, which comes with a pool and private basketball court decorated with a Miami Heat logo, for $2.5 million.

Hardaway continues to live in the mansion. He refused to say why the Heat bought the mansion when contacted by the Detroit News. Hardaway told the newspaper he is doing fine financially despite the lien.

He is a college basketball radio analyst for Compass Media Networks, which broadcasts games in all conferences.

In June, the Miami Herald reported that Hardaway had landed a front office job with the Miami Heat as the team’s community and corporate liaison. It was not immediately clear if he still holds the same position with the Heat as he is not listed on the team’s Website in any capacity.

Hardaway’s reputation took a hit after he made disparaging remarks about gays during a 2007 radio interview in which he said, “I hate gays, so let it be known.”

One of the first things he did after apologizing for his comments was to attend private and group sessions at Miami’s YES Institute, which works to protect youths from violence, discrimination and suicide, according to a 2009 Palm Beach Post report.

“I recall Tim as being reluctant to step through the door, because he must have thought he was going to be berated,” YES director of communciations Luke Jude told the Palm Beach Post. “That’s not how he was received at all. He was exactly the kind of person we wanted to reach. He was authentic and generous. He threw himself into our educational material. A course that typically lasted four hours lasted eight, because he was so involved. He was looking for answers to questions that baffled him. He realized how he was trapped by some messages he had been getting all his life. Suddenly, he was being punished for saying something that he had routinely gotten high-fives for.”

The Tim Hardaway Foundation in 2009 co-sponsored an event benefitting The Trevor Project, a national organization focused on crisis- and suicide-prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth. Hardaway, according to folks at The Trevor Project, came to them quietly and simply asked if he could help.

“I made a mistake,” Hardaway told the Palm Beach Post in 2009. “I can’t take it back, but I’m trying to do everything I can to learn things. Maybe it’ll help somebody else not make the mistake I made.”

Rus Bradburd, former UTEP assistant coach who coached Hardaway, wrote an article in Slam Magazine in Jan. 2010 about Hardaway’s skills, career and controversial comments about gays.

Bradburd wrote that he’d never heard Hardaway say a mean thing or show any cruelty in all the time he’s known Hardaway.

“I don’t hate anybody,” Hardaway Bradburd. “Look at my background, my past. I misspoke, and I apologized.”

According to the Slam article, Hardaway has since learned that some of his closest friends have gay sons and daughters.

Even though he has apologized and hosted events that help the gay community, he still gets confronted about the comments. A lesbian couple confronted Hardaway at a Miami restaurant about his remarks, demanding an explanation.

An hour-long talk ensued in a quiet corner. “OK, you’re still our favorite player,” one of the women told him after they’d spoken, according to the Slam article.

Related Links:Link:Video Career HighlightsLink:Slam: Original Old School: The Education Of Tim HardawayLink:Hardaway Speaks About Don HaskinsLink:Hardaway’s 2007 Remarks About Gays