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The Orlando Sentinel -
Magic coach Stan Van Gundy finally admitted this week that the departure of Grant Hill from the team last summer actually made the team better, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

With Hill in Phoenix, the door was opened for Hedo Turkoglu to play many more minutes for the Magic.

"Grant deciding to leave helped us," Van Gundy said. "I was disappointed when he left, but it put Hedo into a featured role and gave a very talented guy a better chance to shine and use all his skills by having the ball more."

http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archi ... the_magic/


Do most of you guys agree?

Of course.

Still hate him, though.

Yeah. Hedo's much better then Hill at this stage in their career. But Hill would have started because of his name.

i read this earlier on OS, I was going to post it, but I figured you would get to it sooner or later 4life...

as for the article, Stan is 100% correct, it was best for this team.the real question is, what could we have gotten for his expiring contract? hmmm....

last year i heard a lot of people on this board talking about how hedo does better with hill out... well it was true..... i am also glad that hill is gone because it allows us as an orginization to move on from our last attempt at being elite with the signings of mcgrady and hill....

MagicFan149 wrote:mcgrady and hill....

Who?

It's good if he was going to be the starter, which I don't see how he can bee any longer. But I also think the club wanted him back in a reserve role, which I don't think would've got in the way of Hedo that much, if at all.

Hill would have been a third staring caliber SF on one team. It looks like two SFs are OK, but three???

I absolutely agree. I agreed when he left, i was happy he left, still feel the same way now. When the Suns needed him the most he was hobbled and a non factor, who would have thunk it? As long as Hill was a part of this team he was always gonna be a distraction because you could never count on him. I was more than happy that we didnt have to worry about him anymore, it was time to move on.

theTHIEF wrote:i read this earlier on OS, I was going to post it, but I figured you would get to it sooner or later 4life...

as for the article, Stan is 100% correct, it was best for this team.the real question is, what could we have gotten for his expiring contract? hmmm....

This always seems to be the questions with our mgmt... I really think that that's why people were ticked about the Darko thing. it's not that we lost a player, it's that we got nothing in return.

Plus this (darko) is another direct result of the T-Mac trade and IMO we should've gotten everything we could squeeze out of both of those trades/enormous contracts we signed Hill & Mcgrady to.


I thought it was fantastic to get Arroyo and Darko for Cato and a pick, but to lose Darko for nothing, and does anyone recall who that pick turned out to be? Was it Carney? I just remember it was someone that made me

Stan is one of the few guys I'd agree with his opinion even before I read it.

Hill held us back for many many years. Magic organisation got his back through bad times but he just sold out, period. It's so funny and ironic that the 2 guys, downHILL and MACgready left us to pursuit a championship, yet both of them didn't even make it past the 1st round and Magic advanced to the 2nd round, lol. I can't tell you enough how sweet that is. Karma's a b!tch ain't it.

[quote="sChOlaRlY_Magi"][/quote]

well we didn't dump Hill because he was supposed to be coming back so I dont know that I blame the management for that, unless we knew for a fact he was leaving. and the Detroit pick is Rodney Stuckey...

Hopefully we will have a similar story next year about Bogans and JJ...

[quote="sChOlaRlY_Magi"][/quote]

15th pick 2007 by Detroit was Rodney Stuckey

theTHIEF wrote:i read this earlier on OS, I was going to post it, but I figured you would get to it sooner or later 4life...

as for the article, Stan is 100% correct, it was best for this team.the real question is, what could we have gotten for his expiring contract? hmmm....

a salary which would have prevented signing Rashard?

dont know that for sure...but how about a player who would have negated the need for Rashard?

IMO we should've gotten everything we could squeeze out of both of those trades/enormous contracts we signed Hill & Mcgrady to.

Clearing that space as we did allowed us to be the dominate player in the free agent market last year. If we had traded Hill's expiring contract we would have probably taken on another expiring(puts us in the same boat) or another contract which would give us less to offer and potentially miss out on a top free agent(Rashard Lewis).

I believe mgmt made the best decision they could with the available information at the time. Hind sight is always 20/20 though.

ORL wrote:It's good if he was going to be the starter, which I don't see how he can bee any longer. But I also think the club wanted him back in a reserve role, which I don't think would've got in the way of Hedo that much, if at all.

I agree, and is why I was one of the people who hoped to retain Hill as a bench player.

I guess the prospects were better in Phoenix though...

Typhoon20 wrote:Stan is one of the few guys I'd agree with his opinion even before I read it.

Hill held us back for many many years. Magic organisation got his back through bad times but he just sold out, period. It's so funny and ironic that the 2 guys, downHILL and MACgready left us to pursuit a championship, yet both of them didn't even make it past the 1st round and Magic advanced to the 2nd round, lol. I can't tell you enough how sweet that is. Karma's a b!tch ain't it.

Word.

I think that Hill coming back in any role would have been an eventual negative towards this teams development.

While Hill was on the floor, just about everyone would defer to him (not just Hedo).

He needed to move on, and I am glad that things worked out so well for everyone.

Brian Hill loved them Grant iso's.