"Grant Hill is nearing 40. He's shutting down kids nearly half his age. His remarkable season has gone mostly unnoticed because the Suns are largely irrelevant. And now someone just called him a bitch?

That's just wrong.

The verbal assault occurred just as the NCAA Tournament commences, and is the handiwork of former Suns player Jalen Rose, who produced a film for ESPN about the Fab Five.

"For me, Duke was personal," Rose said in the film. "I hated Duke. And I hated everything I felt Duke stood for. Schools like Duke didn't recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited players that were Uncle Toms."

In the documentary, fellow Fab Fiver Jimmy King dropped the B-word on Hill, who won two national championships at Duke.

"I thought Christian Laettner was soft, a bitch," King said. "And I thought Grant Hill was a bitch."

Let's all pause here for a moment.

There was a time when basketball was Black and White. One side viewed the game as an urban creation, a form of cultural expression. The other side liked the neat and tidy version, with the archetypal coach firmly in control.

During the inevitable generational clash, one side gravitated to Michigan's Fab Five because the players were empowered, in control. They were a collection of high school stars who decided to collaborate long before LeBron James made it fashionable, and the coach seemed but a passenger of little consequence. They wore baggy shorts. Their swagger made people gasp. Their merchandise flew off the shelves. They were rebels, trendsetters.

Duke was the antithesis of that. The Blue Devils were viewed as elitist, largely White, intellectual snobs with too much disposable income. They were perceived benefactors of preferential treatment from broadcasters, referees and the system in general. At that time, Duke was America's darling, the little engine that could."