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Grant Hill: Hall of Famer?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Jun 3, 2013.

  1. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    You know you're getting long in the tooth when kids that you covered at the prep level retire. LOL
     
  2. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    You covered Milo of Croton at the ancient Olympics, too, right? Or was that Aesop?
     
  3. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    Neither. I covered Zeus.
     
  4. ColdCat

    ColdCat Well-Known Member

    As a Pistons fan I have some mixed feelings about Hill. He was the best player on the roster at a time when the team itself was solidly mediocre. When he was in town, suddenly the team had a marketable star and an offensive force, but suddenly the team had no identity. Gone were the red, white and blue jerseys, thrown aside for those teal abominations with the idiotic horse logo. Gone too was the defense-first philosophy of the Bad Boys. Yeah, it was kind of nice to see a Piston atop the All-Star voting leaderboard, but it felt like this team might as well be the Charlotte Hornets or Toronto Raptors or Washington Bullet Wizards, some team with no history or identity, just one of those teams you see Michael Jordan dunking over.
    If Hill really were that good wouldn't he have played in a second round series in Detroit? He would come in and score his 20 points every game but his cast of Jerry Stackhouse, a young Lindsey Hunter and the quickly aging Joe Dumars was reliably cannon fodder for the bigger teams in the first round.
    I know the injuries played a big part in his never becoming the next big thing, but how he left Detroit made a bigger impact on the franchise than anything he did there. By getting rid of Hill, who wasn't going to re-sign anyway, the Pistons got Ben Wallace, the four-time Defensive POY, and Chucky Atkins, who became part of the three-team trade that brought Rasheed Wallace to town.
    So sure, Hill was the keystone of the teal-infused Pistons interregnum of the mid to late-90s after the Bad Boys and before the good-luck-scoring-70-against-us Greatest Defense Ever in 2004, but ultimately he is maybe the 15th greatest Piston of all time.
    Count his college career and he is in the Hall, of course.
     
  5. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Any allusion to Grant Hill's "longevity" should come with a big ole asterick next to it.

    Although he technically was in the league for 19 years, he only played in about 1000 games as a result of quite a few seasons where he played less than half the games or missed completely. Perhaps part of the reason he lasted so long is because he simply didn't have the same mileage on his legs as the others from his class.

    I don't see Hill as a "lock", his NBA career alone certainly ain't enough to get him in, but perhaps the combination with his college career could push him over. Kind of an odd case, actually.
     
  6. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    If Joe Dumars can make it in, so can Grant Hill.
     
  7. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Are you implying that Dumars isn't deserving?
     
  8. FileNotFound

    FileNotFound Well-Known Member

    I wanna see a list of the 14 all-time Pistons players who were better than Grant Hill.

    And yes, HOF.
     
  9. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    I think Dumars is deserving, but he's also not one of those players that roll immediately off the tongue when you talk all-time greats.
     
  10. ColdCat

    ColdCat Well-Known Member

    Bob Lanier
    Dave Bing
    Kelly Tripuka
    Isaiah Thomas
    Joe Dumars
    Dennis Rodman
    Bill Lambeer
    Vinnie Johnson
    Buddha Edwards
    Ben Wallace
    Rasheed Wallace
    Tayshaun Prince
    Rip Hamilton
    Chauncey Billups
     
  11. Riptide

    Riptide Well-Known Member

    Kelly Tripuka? :eek:
     
  12. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Buddha Edwards?
     
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