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Paying Jordan Hill

The Los Angeles Lakers’ “big” move at the trade deadline was to acquire point guard Ramon Sessions from the Cleveland Cavaliers. To do so cost the Lakers a first-round pick but equally they were able to move out two unproductive players (Luke Walton and Jason Kapono).

To make room for Sessions, Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak traded away long-time veteran, and frequent but aging hero, Derek Fisher to the Houston Rockets.

It was a major shake-up to the Lakers to lose Fisher, who has since been re-routed to the Oklahoma City Thunder, where he could meet L.A. in the second-round of the playoffs if both the Lakers and Thunder can win two of the next five games apiece.

In return for Fisher (and another first-round pick), Kupchak acquired center/forward Jordan Hill, who initially couldn’t get off the bench ahead of Troy Murphy and Josh McRoberts. He was also fighting through a sprained MCL, which kept him sidelined for a couple weeks.

Eventually, he got his opportunity to play, breaking out in a double-overtime tour-de-force against the Thunder in a 114-106 Laker victory.

Hill played 35 minutes, contributing 14 points, 15 boards and three blocks. Andrew Bynum was not at his best and Jordan was on the floor to close the game (including both overtime sessions).

Now, he’s firmly entrenched himself as the team’s first big off the bench. Lakers head coach Mike Brown indicated recently that he expects Hill’s role to remain constant throughout the postseason

Dat2U wrote:Problem is it took until his third team to do so and he's still a reserve big man in an ideal scenario. So drafting him with the 6th pick would have been a bust as it was for NY drafting him at #8.

Ruzious wrote:He's a nice backup, but I'm not sure the board in general was really wrong about him. You draft him - he has 4 ok years, and he'll get overpaid as a free agent. I think Dat's old general rule applies to him. Don't sign an average/solid/ok player to an MLE sized contract, because clogging the cap with guys like him with long-term contracts can prevent you from making moves to get building block type players. Btw, MHD loved Hill in college. I did too, at one point, but his turnovers and inconsistent offense changed my mind.

closg00 wrote:The discussion then was that he would be a bust, there were a few who liked-him. I guess the question becomes how-good does a player have to turn-out to be for the someone to be wrong about their assessment?