Since joining Phoenix four years ago, Hill has averaged 78 games a season, including more than 80 the last three years and the full 82 in 2008-09. When he was limited to 21 games in 2005-06 due to a persistent ankle injury, publicly pondered retirement and underwent therapy in Canada that offseason, few expected Hill to still be playing at 39 years old and be not at all a liability on the court.
Hill and the Suns visit the TD Garden on Friday, and although Hill has dealt with quadriceps soreness following offseason surgery on his right knee, the 17th-year veteran from Duke has missed a game this season.
At this point in his career, Hill sounds like he takes each possibly debilitating injury not as a setback but as an obstacle to overcome.
"I look forward to back-to-backs [especially] and the challenge of trying to not just stay healthy but to have the energy to go out there and be productive," Hill told The Arizona Republic last weekend. "I'm not worried."
If there's any justice in the world, Hill will be able to keep playing well into his 40s, maybe not as a star but as a serviceable NBA player. Hopes were high when Hill entered the league in 1994. He was an immensely talented player and, by all accounts, an exceptionally good person. He played piano and offered encouragement to a bummed-out Dan Patrick in one of those great 1990s Sportscenter commercials. He gave his time to sick kids and charitable causes. He was a basketball version of Tim Tebow without all the public praying.
He didn't deserve to have his legs cut from under him in 2000 or the scary episode in 2003, when a procedure in which doctors intentionally fractured his ankles led to Hill becoming infected with a potentially fatal strain of the MRSA bacterium.
A cynic might point out that despite playing in fewer than 41 percent of the games in his six years with the Magic, Hill still got paid handsomely. He was paid more than $16 million in his final year in Orlando despite spending 17 games in street clothes.
Hill was never in danger of going hungry, but the middle-class son of former Dallas Cowboys running back Calvin Hill has never given an indication that he's in this business for the money. Injuries didn't just rob Hill of his ability to play. They robbed fans of the opportunity to see potentially one of the great players of his generation in his prime. They robbed the world of a saner version of Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant who strove to use his fame to be a real role model, not a pre-packaged one just trying to sell sneakers.
Hill could have retired in 2006-07, but he took a way-below-market value deal with the Suns to prove he wasn't finished. Now, playing with a relatively low $3 million contract, he is averaging 7.8 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 25 minutes per game. Those are career-lows across the board, but they're better numbers than most 39-year-olds could muster and better than most of us expected for Hill by this point in his life. Not surprisingly, he is also prominent in an ad campaign to generate awareness about anti-gay bullying, proving that he still stands for more than just a game.
If the basketball gods exist, they'll give us another few years of watching Hill show occasional flashes of his former brilliance, and they'll allow Hill to walk off the court under his own power whenever he sees fit.
