Imperfect career! Grant Hill is the biggest regret!

When it comes to the most regrettable players in the NBA, I believe many people will think of players like Oden, Roy, Rose who died due to injuries, or McGrady, Hardaway, etc. These people have briefly shown their talent to dominate the league, which once made people have endless imagination, but it came to an abrupt end at its peak for various reasons, as short and beautiful as fireworks, which is unforgettable.

Among them, the most representative player is Grant Hill.

Among the many Jordan successors in history, Hill is the most likely player to bear the NBA banner in the post-Jordan era. The all-round style, humorous conversation and good image quickly swept the league since it entered the NBA in 1994, and once set off a whirlwind in the mid-1990s. But unfortunately, he suffered an ankle injury at the peak of his career, which has affected his career and directly led to his missed succession of Michael Jordan.

Although the injury changed the direction of his career, Hill still fought in the NBA for 18 seasons, from an absolute main player in the early stage of his career to a defensive blue-collar worker after being injured. Even compared with many players who did not suffer major injuries, Hill has played a fairly complete and long enough career trajectory.

After retiring in 2013, Hill still did not stop his pace. He has served as a program host, a basketball judge and a team shareholder. His most well-known identity is the general manager of the American men's basketball team.

Although he has been active in front of the camera in recent years, Hill rarely talks about a dark period after his injury in public. It was not until 2022 that in order to promote his personal biography "Game: An Autobiography", Hill accepted interviews from multiple media outlets that fans had the opportunity to have a glimpse of his inner trajectory as a player.

Looking back at the interview that year, you can still feel Hill's mood changes. Even though many years have passed, Hill still regrets her career that ended early due to her injuries. Below, we select several stories from media interviews to get a glimpse of the challenges and mood evolution faced by Hill at all stages of her career, and to learn about a real Grant Hill:

The first time I shot an advertisement with the young Kobe, Kobe wrote the script on the spot, and the incident happened in 1998. At that time, Kobe played a second season with obvious progress, but Hill was already a top star in the league at that time. Therefore, before filming the commercial cooperation, although Hill and Kobe had no personal relationship, Hill, who was older, had a longer-term and more famous alliance, naturally regarded Kobe as a younger brother-like character, but he obviously didn't know Kobe too much.

After flying to the set to meet with the staff, the advertisement was not started. At this time, a staff member came over to ask Hill if he could wait a moment because Kobe was going to rewrite the script. Hill was surprised at first, but he still gave in to Kobe.

It was not until the filming started that Hill discovered that Kobe changed all the good lines to his side. Hill was unhappy, and he told the staff that this was different from the previous agreement. If the script was like this, he would not shoot it. In the end, he coordinated with multiple parties and got a script that both agreed.

The invincible Dream Three team in 1996 did not want to score

In 1996, it was the time of the Atlanta Olympics. Compared with the previous two Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and the World Championships held in Toronto in 1994, this time, as the host, the American men's basketball team was under the pressure of not losing gold medals at home in any case. Therefore, the American men's basketball team has all the elite players this time and recruited 12 top NBA players at that time, including five MVPs. The final result was also alive. The Dream Team successfully completed its mission to win the championship with a huge gap of 20 points per game.

What outsiders don't know is that the Meng San team, which looks like a team, actually no one wants to be the scoring champion in the team. The reason behind this is also quite efficient, because once you get the highest score, you will receive a drug test notice the next day, and then you will need to spend several hours waiting for the drug test results. The only player who received a drug test notice in every game is Carl Malone.

According to Hill, it took them several games to find that the player with the highest score would be tested for drugs, so in the later events, they all began to give up scoring and chose to pass the ball to their teammates. In the eyes of the outside world, they are a very selfless team to play, but in fact they just don't want to be the one with the highest score. The truth about the three Orlando giants I missed, Duncan joins the bankruptcy, may be hard to imagine now, but Duncan almost put on the magic jersey. Hill and Duncan have the same agent, and Hill said Duncan might have been more determined than he was because he was still thinking about New York and other teams, but if Duncan left the Spurs, he just wanted to join the Magic.

The Magic played very well that year, with Doug Rivers leading the team's winning rate once exceeding 50%. Everything was pretty good, and the conversation between the two sides went smoothly. According to Hill's feeling, he thought he had a great chance to join forces with McGrady and Duncan in Orlando.

But everything changed after a dinner. Duncan's girlfriend asked Rivers a question:

"Can the player's wife or girlfriend get on the team plane?"

This question is very common now, but it is basically impossible to happen at that time. Rivers denied the issue and made it clear that it was work and he wouldn't allow such a thing to happen. Hill didn't know at the time that the Spurs allowed the player's wife and girlfriend to take the team plane. He once thought it was a boring question, so he naturally didn't care too much.

After returning to the hotel, Hill's wife told him: Duncan will not come to Orlando. And Hill asked what does it mean? Then Hilder's wife told him that when Duncan's girlfriend asked this question, Rivers's answer changed her body language. She thought Duncan might have changed. Hill didn't care at that time, but she didn't expect it to eventually become a reality.

The mood change after a serious injury

According to Hill's interview, around 1996, he once thought that he was the strongest player in the league at that time, but during the injury 2000-04 period, he gradually lost this confidence.

Hill's statement is very straightforward. When you reach the top player, you spend four years recuperating. You will naturally doubt yourself. During this period, he gradually changed from "thinking that he is the strongest player in the league" to "I am grateful if you can play healthily." Although he returned to the court later, his body and mind were severely damaged at that time, and he could basically no longer return to his previous state.

In 2004, after Hill missed a whole season, he returned to his alma mater, Duke University, to visit his mentor, Coach Lao K, who asked him:

"Who is the top five stars in the league today?"

Hill replied: "O'Neal, Kobe, Iverson..."

Old Coach K asked again: "Who is the next five?"

Hill kept queuing like this, and then coach K said: "You listed about 20 people, but you didn't mention yourself."

This was Hill's situation at that time. When he returned to the team due to injury, he only wanted to be a part of the team. Although he was still playing, looking back, he had lost the attitude of dominating the league at that time at that time.

After being injured in Detroit, he believed that there might be some misjudgment at that time. In the end, he chose to play with an injury, which caused injuries to accumulate. In the last season of the Pistons, injuries completely broke out, and then he underwent surgery. Although he was injured, he was still the target of multiple teams' pursuit. After coming to Magic, he was originally expected to return in December, but due to some communication problems, Hill made a comeback early in September, which took three more years to recover, and during this period, he underwent three more surgeries.

According to Hill, if he could recover step by step at that time, the final result might be completely different.

encountered this kind of accident at the peak of 27 years old. Although Hill himself advocated optimism, for him at that time, he could not completely ignore it physically or mentally. He was always trying to find a way to return to the court.

After returning from injury, Hill played nine more seasons. As for this injury-related career, Hill believes that this is worth more than any achievements he has achieved in his previous career, because he knows what he has experienced and he has never been able to fully let go. Looking back at this experience is really difficult enough. Hillben had the opportunity to write his own legend. Although he had a career that surpassed many people, he should have been better.

In 2022, when Cleveland All-Stars, Hill watched McGrady, Carter and others become top 75 stars, he tried to convince himself:

"I understand, my career was injured, my college achievements helped me enter the Hall of Fame, my accumulated grades were not enough, etc., but when he worked very late at night, complex emotions suddenly surged into his heart. He was surprised that he had this emotion. No matter how he pretended not to care, no matter how he protected himself, the real feeling in his heart was hard to hide: Go to him! I also It's time to be selected! "

At the 1996 Top 50 Star Ceremony, Hill was also on the scene as an All-Star member. At that time, he made up his mind: "I will definitely be on the list when they choose again next time."

But when he saw players from his contemporaries being selected in 2022, such as Ray Allen, Reggie Miller, Hill thought that he had beaten these people, but the final result was completely opposite. This situation deeply hurt him.

After more than 20 years, Hill reviewed his own experience in his personal autobiography, and many heavy things were finally allowed to let go.

"Everyone has a hurdle that he cannot overcome. Some people encounter something worse than me in their life. Sometimes we suppress it. Sometimes you suppress it in order to continue a normal life, but in the end you will still recognize its existence and face it, deal with it, and finally let it go."

The biggest regret of his career, missing the Zen Master's phone number

When Hill became a free agent in 2007, Zen Master Phil Jackson called him, but after dialing three calls, Hill could not call back. He thought that the Lakers had failed, and in the end, in order to maintain his health, he chose to join the Suns of the top medical team.

Afterwards, Hill looked back and saw that compared to Nash's hands in the Suns, he could only stay in the bottom corner to play the role of a catcher shooter; the Lakers Zen master may be more good at using Hill, and Phil Jackson has always liked the ball-handling forward. According to Hill, the Zen master may have been recruiting him to join the Lakers as the number one ball handler at that time. No matter what the ball is, it will be more useful than him squatting in the bottom corner.

He still plays such roles from time to time during the Sun era, but this is not really his style of play.

Although the Suns subsequently achieved the first record in the Western Conference, with the Lakers trading Gasol, the entire situation in the Western Conference was completely changed. Failure to join forces with the Lakers and Kobe has also become Hill's most regrettable decision in his career.