Grant Hill Article (Spurs Related)

[Russ]

This is a nice article on the Grant Hill signing that makes all the points a Spurs fan would want to about Hill and the Spurs:

Celizic: Suns' signing of Hill worth the gamble but ...
Phoenix improves team, but can oft-injured swingman stay healthy?
OPINION
By Mike Celizic
Updated: 3:21 p.m. PT July 5, 2007
Grant Hill wants to win a championship, and there aren't any places outside of San Antonio where he'll have a better chance of doing that than in Phoenix. But let's not say just yet that he's the player who's going to raise the Suns to the zenith.

Phoenix is looking at him that way. He's a great veteran talent and a leader with a 6-8 frame, and he's a swingman who can play small forward or shooting guard. Throw him in the starting lineup with Amare Stoudemire, Raja Bell, Shawn Marion (unless he's traded) and Steve Nash, and the Suns are a better team than they were last year, maybe even a championship team.

There's no question he's a good pick-up. After having made $93 million in the past seven years, Hill figures he has enough socked away to get him and his family through a rainy day — or even a rainy three or four decades. The Suns have a salary cap exemption for a player making just under $2 million, and Hill is expected to consent to work for that paltry salary. If he gets a ring, it will have been worth it.

But whether Hill, who will be 35 in October and is running on an ankle that's undergone five surgeries, is enough to push the Suns ahead of the Spurs is a question that only the coming season will answer.

On the face of it, you have to say Hill won't be enough for a number of reasons.

The first is that the biggest reason the Suns can't get past San Antonio is they don't have Tim Duncan and the Spurs do. Duncan's a big forward; Hill's a small forward. Hill may help the offense and the defense, but he'll have no real effect on Duncan.

And if you can't deal with Duncan, you can't win a le. It's that simple.

Then there's Hill's health. He played 65 games last year, 44 more than the previous season. He played 67 games in 2004-05, but only 47 games in the three years before that. Only once since 1997-98 he has played as many as 70 games, and that was in 1999-00.

He says he's healthy, and there's no doubt that's true — at this moment. But anytime someone has had as many injuries as he has, you can't blithely announce that this year, his 13th in the league, is going to be the one he'll go through healthy. The reality is the older he gets, the more likely it is he'll get injured again.

So to be the difference, he's got to be healthy. One of the reasons he's coming to the Spurs is that coach Mike D'Antoni doesn't believe in hard practices, believing that the more a team puts on the practice court, the less it has for the game court. For Hill, who doesn't have a lot of miles left, that makes sense.

But even if he's healthy, the Suns play an up-tempo game. How well will he be able to keep up the Suns' frantic pace? How many minutes will he be able to play?

More questions.


Finally, the Suns failure to break through may have more to do with style than with tempo. Raja Bell is a great defender, but Phoenix is a team that would rather beat you with its offense than with its defense. In the playoffs, when the half-court game and getting stops is everything, they simply haven't been able to win.


Maybe Hill is the difference. He shoots just over 50 percent, and every team needs that kind of scoring efficiency. But he no longer rebounds a lot – his average is down from nearly 10 early in his career to under 4 last season – and he doesn't have great range on his jumper.

I think that the key to the Suns breaking through is Stoudemire. Last year, he was coming back from knee surgery. He's young and athletic and can be the monster in the middle a team needs to win in the West. If he can continue to grow and mature, he's the man who can be the difference.

That's why I couldn't understand why the Suns were talking about trading him for Kevin Garnett. No offense to KG — he's an all-time great talent — but if you give up your center for a high-flying forward, you're going to have a heckuva highlight reel, but you're not going to have a ring.

It makes more sense to add a Hill to Stoudemire and the rest of the team than to subtract Stoudemire for anyone.

In that sense, and given their cap problems, the Suns probably made the best move they could. Sure, a three-point shooter would have been nice, as would a bruiser up front. But if Hill is healthy, he's a great player and a savvy leader, respected by all.

The question is whether he's got enough left in the tank and whether he can stay healthy for a full season — or most of one, anyway. He's also got to finish the year on his feet and not in a hospital bed. Given his history, it's a big gamble, but one that's worth taking.

Put it this way: he gives them a better chance than they had, and he makes the team better in just about every way. Plus, he doesn't cost a lot. If he comes with risks, they're risks worth taking.

Mike Celizic writes regularly for MSNBC.com and is a freelance writer based in New York.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19621196/

[SAGambler]

I suppose the price is right for him, but I really don't see how he makes the Suns any better.

As long as D'Antoni is there, they will play their "seven seconds or less" game, and I just don't see a 35 year old with all the surgeries he's had, being able to keep up in that kind of offense. Not to mention he isn't a 3 pt threat, and that's what the Suns thrive on.

Here is another thing on the Suns. Nash is going to be a year older, and he has suffered back problems for the past few years. Usually when you start having back problems, they tend to get worse with age, not better. So how effective is Nash going to be next year? Lot of questions to be answered on the upcoming Suns team.

[lebomb]

The Spurs would have made more sense to me........The Spurs would not have wanted him to play a ton of minutes.....especially in the regular season.....they would have used him a little bit more in the playoffs.

I bet money Hill gets injured.

[raspsa]

Maybe Hill's acquisition is the Suns' way of conceding their run&gun game just won't work vs the Spurs defense and they will have to resort to a half-court game as their best option. In a half-court game, Hill can be a factor vs the Spurs but not a decisive one. He doesn't address the primary problem the Suns have containing Parker and Duncan. I expect him to play limited minutes in the regular season to preserve him for the playoffs when his poise and leadership will matter more.

[Dave McNulla]

Maybe Hill's acquisition is the Suns' way of conceding their run&gun game just won't work vs the Spurs defense and they will have to resort to a half-court game as their best option. In a half-court game, Hill can be a factor vs the Spurs but not a decisive one. He doesn't address the primary problem the Suns have containing Parker and Duncan. I expect him to play limited minutes in the regular season to preserve him for the playoffs when his poise and leadership will matter more.

if he has such great poise, how many game winning shots has he hit to win a playoff series? oh, none?! alright, forget that. how many playoff games has he won? only four? out of how many? 19? ooooh, that's not so good. ok. anybody who can shoot 50% must have some value, but maybe not so much. he's a classy guy. i just don't see him as being a big puzzle piece.

[Shred]

Spur fans are clearly concerned about this....

[xmas1997]

Spur fans are clearly concerned about this....

I'm a consumate Spurs fan,
and honestly, I'm not really concerned about this!

However, I am happy for Steve Kerr and his new organization.
It should make the Suns a better team.
The only problem I see for the Suns is that it just doesn't make them still quite good enough to get past the Spurs.
But hey, it'll put more fans in the seats and that is a good thing!
And another hey, it puts the Suns now on a par with the Mavs and in "near" elite status.
Too bad it is still one notch below elite and thus the Spurs.
But you can't have everything, right?

[stéphane]

I'm quite happy the suns got Hill. I didn't want him in SA. Being old is one thing. Being old + injury prone is another. There's no room for him on a team wich play on D like we do. Sur he was a big time player when healthy but it was a decade ago.

[mikeanthony21]

Spur fans are clearly concerned about this....

Well , Dr. Phil, why don't you tell us exactly why this would have us quaking in our boots?

[50 cent]

*yawn*

[Clutch20]

It's all about Grant still pouting about Timmy deciding not to play alongside him way back about 3 trophies ago

___________________________

“They do a great job of their system and staying true to form,
making big plays in big moments,” Suns coach Mike D'Antoni
told reporters in Phoenix on Thursday. “That's what we're
trying to get. Mental toughness, being lucky, I don't know
what it is.”

The Spurs, D”Antoni added, just seem to “believe a little bit
more.”
“All the time,” he said.

[baseline bum]

It doesn't worry me much. The Suns aren't a Grant Hill away from winning a le. They're a coach away from winning it all.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Maybe Hill's acquisition is the Suns' way of conceding their run&gun game just won't work vs the Spurs defense and they will have to resort to a half-court game as their best option. In a half-court game, Hill can be a factor vs the Spurs but not a decisive one. He doesn't address the primary problem the Suns have containing Parker and Duncan. I expect him to play limited minutes in the regular season to preserve him for the playoffs when his poise and leadership will matter more.

The problem with that line of thought is that they still don't have a head coach who can even spell defense, much less design one.

[Rummpd]

Michael Finley (who in his prime was a pretty close match with Hill in his)with the confidence he gained in winning a championship is > an older and injury prone Hill anyway.

[Shred]

The problem with that line of thought is that they still don't have a head coach who can even spell defense, much less design one.

I don't recall either team's defense being a weakness during the Suns/Spurs series (with the exception of the deciding Game 6). The Suns played solid defense throughout the series, especially after they switched defenders on Parker after Game 1.