Thursday, July 14, 2016

Top 100 NBA Players: #84 - Grant Hill


Grant Hill

It's easy to forget what a great player Grant Hill once was when he spent so many seasons at the end of his career as a role player or on injured reserve, but he was once one of the league's top players and the heir apparent to Michael Jordan before injuries derailed his career.

In his rookie season, Hill firmly established himself as a rising star, averaging 19.9 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 5.0 assists while leading all players in All-Star voting and winning the Rookie of the Year Award. He was the first rookie in any major American sports league to lead all players in fan voting for the All-Star Game, and he was already the best player on the Detroit Pistons.

Over the next 5 seasons, he was one of the top 10 players in the league every year, and in 1997 he put up some historic numbers. That year, he became just the fifth player in history to average at least 21 points, 9 rebounds, and 7 assists per game, joining Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, John Havlicek, and Larry Bird in that select club. No player has accomplished that since.

What followed was nothing short of tragic. Hill injured his ankle late in the 2000 season, then was traded to Orlando in the offseason, where he missed a total of 364 games over his seven seasons with the Magic, an average of 52 games missed per season. He had numerous ankle surgeries during that time, and nearly died once when he contracted a major infection after one operation.

Rather than retiring, Hill signed with Phoenix as a free agent, where he was a starter and a captain for a few years, but not the star player he was at his peak. Hill's star power never led to playoff success, as he was on the winning side in a playoff series for the first time in 2010, making him the oldest first-time playoff series winner in history.

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