Hill's Return To Pistons Would Be Poetic Justice

Call it "Homecoming -- The Sequel". But here's hoping that it has the same results as "The Godfather, Part II," as opposed to "Caddyshack II."

The Pistons tried to play the nostalgia and emotion card last January, when they brought Chris Webber home to finally realize his dream of playing NBA ball in Detroit. And it worked, for a time -- until Webber either became too old or too disinterested (or both), seemingly overnight. Now it's questionable whether he wants to return for another season -- retirement possibly looming. Maybe just as questionable is the team's interest in bringing him back.

But there appears to be no questioning this: the Pistons would like to bring Grant Hill back to Detroit, forthwith. They'd like to throw him some mid-level bucks and let him do his thing off the bench next season. This, seven years after Hill pressed for his shipment to Orlando, in a sign-and-trade deal that brought the Pistons Ben Wallace and Chucky Atkins.

The Hill move was the first official transaction of team president Joe Dumars's executive career. It wasn't the best of scenarios for a rookie GM: the franchise player wants out -- and the whole league knew it. Yet Dumars, displaying his uncanny knack for being a front office man, engineered a whale of a deal.

Now, it may be another move involving Hill that will again help define Dumars's post-playing legacy.

This time, it would be the reverse -- Hill leaving Orlando for Detroit. And he would leave the Magic as he left the Pistons: no playoff series victories, dreams dashed, hopes crushed.

It's one of the most unfair of all NBA facts. Grant Hill, in 13 pro seasons -- many played under duress and painful agony, some not really played at all -- has never experienced winning a playoff series. He has not, simply, been anywhere near an NBA championship. And this about one of the classiest players the league has had the pleasure of calling its own in the last 20 years.

Hill, by all rights, should be in a television studio, trading barbs with Charles Barkley. Or maybe on the sidelines wearing a headset, telling Marv Albert what just happened, and why. Or maybe -- just maybe -- he should be carving his own niche as a front office man. Or a coach. Certainly none of us should have been surprised had that been the direction Hill decided to take.

This is because of his injury-ravaged ankles and legs, which have robbed him of almost two full seasons. Some say his decision to try to play on his mangled ankle in the 2000 playoffs for the Pistons contributed greatly to his subsequent problems. Then when he decided to opt out of Detroit, he was vilified, instead of praised for playing when lesser men would have sat on the bench in street clothes.


Hill's time in Orlando lacked the magic he imagined

It brings to mind another local guy, Danny Roundfield from Central Michigan, Detroit born and bred. GM Jack McCloskey acquired Roundfield before the 1984-85 season, from Atlanta, to be the stud power forward the team had lacked. Roundfield had, in previous years, been an offensive force and a beast on the boards.

In the regular season, Roundfield was OK -- not spectacular, but he wasn't 23 years old anymore, either. The Pistons qualified for the second round of the NBA playoffs in 1985 for the first time in nine years. And they had pushed the vaunted Boston Celtics to a sixth game, to be played at Joe Louis Arena.

Roundfield dressed and played some minutes in the first half. But something was bothering him, physically, and when the teams came out of the dressing room for the second half, Roundfield joined his Pistons mates -- in street clothes, the player's version of a white flag. And their sign of a small heart. That summer, McCloskey shipped Roundfield to Washington, for Rick Mahorn. They didn't call McCloskey Trader Jack for nothing.


The Piston Roundfield was nothing like the Hawk Roundfield

Hill would have none of that in 2000, against the superior Miami Heat in the first round. The Pistons, with Hill gamely leading them on his bad wheel, gave the Heat all they could handle in Game 2 in Miami. A win would have tied the best-of-five series at a victory each, with the next two games in Detroit. But then Hill was forced to the bench, the pain too great. The Pistons fell short, and their season -- and Hill's career in Detroit -- was over two nights later.

There are strong indications that Hill would be very amenable to a return to the site of the birth of his NBA career. He would be, they say, happy to be a bench player. He could be another Lindsey Hunter -- who left Detroit for a few winters, became an NBA vagabond, then returned in time to help the Pistons win a title in 2004.

When Grant Hill was drafted by the Pistons in 1994 -- amidst GM Billy McKinney's tears -- the team was nothing much. Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer had just retired. The Pistons won barely more than 20 games in 1993-94. They were sorry, pathetic former champions. The team Hill would return to in 2007 will be a championship contender -- in some way, shape, or form. And it would certainly provide Hill with his first postseason series victory.

There's still time for Grant Hill's NBA career to have a happy ending -- the ending that would make all the pain, rehabilitation, and heartache he's endured worth it.

All the Pistons have to do, I think, is ask him.