NBA: Remembering Grant Hill’s Career

Grant Hill announced his retirement on TNT’s “Inside The NBA” pregame show Saturday night, June 1, so it feels necessary to take a look back at his basketball career in light of what could’ve been. Growing up in the early 90’s, my favorite player other than Michael Jordan was easily Grant Hill. He was an athletic, high-flying and talented wing player with a high basketball IQ and a well-rounded game. Simply put, he was the complete package.

Hill first put himself on the map in the Elite 8 of the 1992 NCAA tournament, throwing a miraculous 75-foot pass to Christian Laettner, who hit the game-winner at the buzzer to send Duke to the Final Four. He won two titles with the Blue Devils and led them to a third championship appearance in 1994. He was drafted third overall that year by the Detroit Pistons, selected behind Glenn Robinson and Jason Kidd. Hill would share Rookie of the Year honors with Kidd.

Despite his enthralling and highlight-heavy years in Detroit, however, Grant Hill is most commonly associated with the nagging injury problems that plagued him throughout his career. In numerous interviews over the years, Hill has even admitted that his infant daughter’s first words were “ankle.” On April 15, 2000, a day that will live in infamy for Grant Hill fans, he sprained his ankle against the Philadelphia 76ers. It was seven days before the playoffs. He continued to play on it in Detroit’s first-round series against the Miami Heat, but couldn’t go anymore and left halfway through Game 2. His career would never be the same after that ankle injury, despite how fantastic his first six seasons were:

A sign-and-trade deal sent him to the Orlando Magic, where NBA fans everywhere looked forward to a Grant Hill-Tracy McGrady pairing with great anticipation. But in his first four seasons in Orlando, Hill’s lingering ankle problems limited him to just 47 games. He played zero games during the 2003-04 season, the same year that Hill’s former team, a team that never gave him the help necessary to advance past the first round of the playoffs, won a championship.

It’s unfortunate that persistent injuries during his NBA career largely prevented Hill from having the same kind of championship success he enjoyed in college. In 19 years of professional basketball, Hill never won a championship. He didn’t win his first playoff series until 2010 when he was a role player on a Phoenix Suns squad that should have accomplished more. You can take the obvious road and chalk that up to injuries, but Hill was also never fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time to win a ring, which is a shame considering his Hall-of-Fame caliber career.

Which brings me to my next point, an undeniable fact that is 100 percent indisputable: Grant Hill absolutely belongs in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In following the “Grant Hill” trend on Twitter last night, it saddened me to realize how little people know about A) Grant Hill, B) grammar in general and C) what constitutes a Hall of Famer. I can’t really do anything about B), but I can clarify something about basketball’s Hall of Fame: Contrary to popular belief, a player’s college career is a factor in a player’s HOF candidacy, not just the NBA. So when you couple Hill’s three championship appearances at Duke with the remarkable feats he achieved in his limited healthy years in the NBA, you have an unquestionable Hall-of-Fame candidate.

Still not convinced? Well let’s take a look at some of the things Hill accomplished pre-injury. In his six years with the Pistons, before his ankles turned into tissue paper, he was clearly identifiable as one of the league’s premier talents. LeBron James perfected the “point-forward” position, but Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady were the founding fathers. According to ESPN’s TrueHoop, Hill was one of six players in NBA history to average more than 20 points, five rebounds and five assists per game in his first six seasons. The other five? Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and LeBron James. Not bad company. Especially when you consider that Hill far surpassed those base qualifications, tallying 21.6 points, 7.9 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game from 1994-2000. Those numbers are matched only by the Big O. He also joins Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James as one of the only players to lead his team in scoring, assists and rebounds per game for three seasons or more.

In his first season, Hill became the first rookie in NBA history to lead the All-Star voting after averaging 19.9 points, 6.4 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 1.8 steals per game. In the 1995-96 season he led the league in triple doubles with 10 and then followed that terrific year up with a gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics. The following season, he averaged 21.4 points, 9.0 rebounds and 7.3 assists and 1.8 steals per game, making him the first player since Larry Bird to post a 20-9-7 statline in the regular season. Quick important tangent: Nobody’s done it since.

So now that we’ve established the kind of pace Grant Hill was on in those first six years, how about his longevity? Despite missing nearly 500 games in his career (484 out of a possible 1,510, to be exact), Hill was able to transform himself into a healthy role player in Phoenix and play until the ripe age of 40. And unlike a Kurt Thomas or Juwan Howard, Hill was still able to contribute as a mediocre scorer and a lockdown defender. Hill is one of 17 players in NBA history with more than 17,000 points, 6,000 rebounds and 4,000 assists. Twelve of those 17 guys are already in the Hall of Fame, with the other four active players (Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Jason Kidd and Paul Pierce) undoubtedly heading there one day. Hill is No. 9 on the all-time list of triple-doubles with 29 in his career. That’s one ahead of Michael Jordan (28), but the real kicker? All 29 of Grant Hill’s career triple doubles were in his first five seasons.

Finally, it’s impossible to talk about Grant Hill without mentioning what a class act he is. During the ’90s, Jordan was the man. But Hill was equally prominent, putting Fila on the map (until later we realized he probably should have signed with Nike for the sake of his health), taking Sprite’s marketability to a whole new level and overall becoming a good role model for kids to look up to. He won the NBA’s Sportsmanship Award three times, is known for his charity work and developed a reputation as a great, cooperative interview with the media. And also, again, the Sprite thing:

Grant Hill’s legacy will be summarized as “what might have been,” and rightfully so. This current MJ-Kobe-LeBron debate NBA fanatics regularly participate in might have been even more complicated had Hill stayed healthy. There’s no denying it. Anyone who saw him play or can look at a basic statline can tell you that. But Hill should also be remembered for embodying all of the essential traits of what you want a franchise player and all-time great to be: a talented competitor, a terrific and well-balanced athlete and a great person off the court. I hate to see him retire, but with as eloquent and well-spoken as he is, I look forward to his days as an NBA commentator (you know it’s going to happen). It’s been a long time coming, but maybe Grant Hill’s retirement  and eventual induction into the Hall of Fame, will help us realize just how unfortunate it is he never got to fully flesh out his career.