Grant Hill's in the HOF

Uncle Mxy · Post #1 » by **Uncle Mxy** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 4:52 pm

With 5 All-Star appearances as a Piston, will this second-round playoff virgin have a teal flag hanging in the rafters?

hoophabit · Post #2 » by **hoophabit** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 9:30 pm

Hill had his career derailed to some degree by injury, but his collegiate and pro careers in combination makes him a worthy addition, IMO.

ChuckVanBrown · Post #3 » by **ChuckVanBrown** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 12:21 am

He's totally deserving of being in the HOF. Aside from his career stats, Hill was one of the most popular players in the mid/late 90s. I believe he was the first rookie to receive the most All-Star game votes. Many considered him the future face of the NBA at that time. Obviously it's not all about popularity, but there's no denying that Hill was a superstar at that time.

He was also a brilliant player at his peak. He wasn't as dominant as LeBron, but he could fill a stat sheet. The only knock is that he never did much in the postseason, and the injuries took a toll on him. Still, he managed to have a long career despite the injuries.

He's also deserving of having his jersey retired as a Piston at some point. I think Sheed should have his retired first, but Hill belongs among the Pistons greats, even if he wasn't on a great team.

ComboGuardCity · Post #4 » by **ComboGuardCity** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 12:38 am

Grant Hill is one of my first piston memories. Injuries derailed a top 15 player of all time career imo.

Post #5 » by **Snakebites** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 6:17 am

Grant Hill was the star when I started following and watching the Pistons in the 95-96 season.

Of course, back in those days I only got to see a handful of games per year in the pre-league pass era.

Certainly a well deserved selection. This years inductees:

Nash
Kidd
Hill
Cheeks

Cheeks seems like a good guy and everything, but man that's a case of "one of these things is not like the others" if I ever saw one. Basketball seriously has the lamest HOF of anyone. Cheeks was a good player and everything but HOF for him seems silly.

Ray Allen should have gotten in, but I'm sure his time will come soon enough. Reggie Miller got in during year 2 of his eligibility, and Ray Allen seems pretty comparable.

JNewton · Post #6 » by **JNewton** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 6:53 pm

Uncle Mxy wrote:With 5 All-Star appearances as a Piston, will this second-round playoff virgin have a teal flag hanging in the rafters?

I'd be pretty disappointed if the Pistons retire his number, but I suspect Gores might do it. He made his choice and should not receive any type of acknowledgement from the Pistons.

srt4b · Post #7 » by **srt4b** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 7:00 pm

Meh. We were better when he left.

Post #8 » by **Snakebites** » Sun Apr 1, 2018 11:58 pm

srt4b wrote:Meh. We were better when he left.

Not right away.

In fact, we weren't unambigiously better than the 96-97 season until the year we won the championship- we just had a little more playoff success because the east was weaker. It's easy to forget we actually won 54 games that year.

Our best Hill year was better than 01-02, though probably not better than 02-03.

I'd favor retiring his number. I think its pretty absurd to still be salty about the fact that he left 18 years after it happened.

Kntrl · Post #9 » by **Kntrl** » Mon Apr 2, 2018 1:57 am

i dont like retiring numbers of players that didnt play their whole career in one city. But times have changed and Grant Hill was the man. Even when he lost his athleticism to injury he played great basketball for a long time. Class Act also.

Post #10 » by **Snakebites** » Mon Apr 2, 2018 5:18 am

Kntrl wrote:i dont like retiring numbers of players that didnt play their whole career in one city. But times have changed and Grant Hill was the man. Even when he lost his athleticism to injury he played great basketball for a long time. Class Act also.

There's very few players that meet that criteria, and only a few of the numbers we've retired do. Dumars and Isiah certainly did, but if memory serves everybody else spent at least a modicum of time elsewhere, and most spent significant phases of their career elsewhere.

I agree that I'd like to see his number retired. Ben got his number retired and his length of time in Detroit was pretty comparable to Hill's, and ended in a very public, somewhat acrimonious free agent departure just like Hill's did.

As fans we should also collectively acknowledge that it was tough to blame Hill for leaving when he did. Not just because of the non-contending status of the team, but also because the franchise didn't value him as they should have and low-balled him. Of course, they were ultimately vindicated in this lowball as the injury he got in the playoffs proved to be a career deathblow, at least for him as a star player. But it's still tough to blame Hill for the move he made at the time now that the emotions have had time to simmer down.