Hardaway retired in 2003. Meaning in 07-08 was when he was eligible for the hall. That coincided with his rant.

2010 he starts working with the trevor project, and by 2013 he was publicly supporting Jason Collins and same sex marriage in florida.

I definitely think the homophobic rant got him ignored for a long while by the committee. Over the last few years I think him working with the LGBT+ community got the attention of voters, and probably bumped up his case since his career was borderline.

The homophobia hurt his borderline case initially, but his community outreach work with the LGBT+ community probably got him the boost to the HOF now, and probably in a year where there weren't any huge names like Duncan, Garnett or Kobe.