Grant Hill Q&A, good article Stand-up Guy For the 1st time since his 4th surgery, Grant Hill talks about his future By Brian Schmitz | Sentinel Staff Writer Posted September 7, 2003 Grant Hill still is recovering from a fourth surgery to his left ankle on March 18. Staff writer Brian Schmitz spoke with Hill after one of his workouts in a swimming pool at RDV Sports-plex. Among other things, Hill, upbeat and in a joking mood, says he hopes to return to play sometime this upcoming season. But he is also prepared to sit out the entire season if the rest benefits what he calls his final comeback attempt. "If it means having to sit out a year, . . . then I'm not saying it will be easy," said Hill, who has played just 47 games since signing with the Magic as a free agent in 2000. "But I'll do whatever is necessary." Question: Grant, there's one thing everybody in town is dying to know. Are you really playing the piano on your wife Tamia's soon-to-be-released CD? Answer: (Hill laughs and plays a pretend piano). Yeah, I really have keyboard credits on one of her songs. I'm musically inclined, Magic fans. I have talents. Maybe it will parlay into something bigger and better for me. I dabble on the keyboard. When you're not playing, you have to do something to keep busy. 'Don't sleep' -- that's what the young guys say. Don't sleep. I'm not trying to be Shaq or anything. I'm not trying to go platinum. It's fun. I can kind of escape. All you aspiring musicians out there looking for a keyboard player, call me. Q: I hear the Magic are looking for a small forward. Seriously, I hardly recognized you; you weren't on crutches. How do you feel, and what's the prognosis? A: All I know is that I just got off crutches six weeks ago. I was on crutches from what -- January 17 until July 21? I was on crutches for about a total of six months. Man, I'm glad I'm walking. I'm glad I can drive. I don't have to put crutches in the car and then walk from here to there. It's hot, and I'm sweatin', and I'm just funky all the time. I don't know if the doctors are going to say, 'You can go on the court in two months, five months' -- I don't know. I'm feeling really good. My wife says I still look good, so that's good to know. I'm just patiently sawing wood. I use that analogy. Every day I look at it as a day to get better. Everything that we've done in terms of rehab, I've felt good. We're just taking it nice and slow. Q: So you're on the slow boat to the season. When do you think you'll make an appearance? A: I don't know. In conversations with my doctors, we're just taking it check-up to check-up. As an athlete, I would have loved to have played today. But honestly, I don't know. There has been a lot of speculation as to when I'm coming back -- I'm coming back this year or next year. I could be back this season at some point, or it could be next year. That's the reality of the situation. I'd like to be able to say I'll be back tomorrow or next week, but at this time, I just don't know. Q: You've had more surgeries than most rodeo cowboys or NFL linemen. So, do you think this last one will take? Is four your lucky number? A: Yeah, we're all hoping that it will take, and I feel that way. I feel I still have basketball left in me, and I still feel like this ankle still has basketball left in it. We all know the history of it. We don't have to relive it. Q: Amen. A: Yeah, you know, sometimes it's good to be a Monday Morning quarterback or Monday Morning doctor. You kind of learn what worked and didn't work, and I think we all put our minds together to do that. I feel like, hopefully, we got it. I know I said that to you before, but at the same time, in terms of a timetable, . . . I don't know when. I just take my time and follow everyone's orders and take it nice and slow and . . . remove myself from the triathlon I was going to compete in next week. That was a joke. The triathlon thing. Q: The Olympic swimming trials, we'd buy. But not the triathlon. Could you handle more swimming if you have to sit out all of this season? A: I'm prepared to do whatever it takes. Do I like coming here swimming in the pool? I hate the pool. It was cool last year. It was fun and different, but now I hate it. Hey, if that's what it takes to get me back on the court, then I'll do it. If it means having to sit out a year, . . . then I'm not saying it will be easy, but I'll do whatever is necessary. Q: A league doctor apparently thinks you can come back this season, ruling against the Magic, who were trying to get the injury exception. Were you surprised the team was turned down? A: Yes and no. I think the league has only given out a few of those in the last 15 years. Honestly, at that point this summer, I was just staying out of all that. I just went up to New Jersey or New York to see the NBA doctor. As far as I was concerned, it was paperwork, opinions and this, that and the other. Is it surprising? I don't know what to think. One thing that's good; maybe they think I'll be back. You know, the doctor says, 'He looks good.' But getting the injury exception would have helped our team. Q: But if Grant Hill can't get an injury exception, who can? A: I don't know. They [the Miami Heat] got it for Alonzo Mourning. You look at an ankle, and you look at a kidney. OK, it's like if the ankle doesn't hold up, I can still resume my life. Maybe a kidney is looked at as a more life-threatening complication, I don't know. I don't know what the criteria is. Q: Obviously, the Magic put forth the case to the league that you couldn't play this season. John Weisbrod [team chief operating officer] has publicly said he doesn't want you to play, just rest and rehab. How do you weigh your desire to play against the team's ultra- cautious approach? A: I want to be cautious, too. It's their franchise, it's their investment, and for me, it's my ankle, my career. So I think we both have a lot weighing on it. At this time last year, I was already on the court for a month- and-a-half. We're being methodical with this. We are being more cautious. Maybe that's sitting out the year, maybe it's coming back at the end. I don't know what will happen. I'm just taking it swimming stroke by swimming stroke. One stroke after another. Q: Then it's sink or swim after this season, right? A: This is it. No more surgical procedures on this ankle. I think everyone hates to say it, but everyone agrees that it's probably it. We got to get it right. This is the last hurdle. After this, man, if it doesn't work, I'm going to be delivering Sentinels in the neighborhood every morning. Q: Let's say you don't have to take up a paper route and are sound enough to play. After three false starts, who will make the call? A: The doctor who did the surgery [Dr. James Nunley of the Duke University Medical Center]. We'll confer with the people here, the doctors and the team. I'm sure any decision will be a team decision. Hopefully, I'll have some say. We all want the same thing. We want me to have a long career and beat this. If it was a best-case scenario, I say it's still a long ways from now. Q: Did the thought of retirement enter your mind? A: Uh, no. Not really. Probably the worst time was post-surgery. I'm following my team in the playoffs, having to watch [the Magic blow a 3-1 lead against Detroit]. If retirement was an option, I wouldn't have had this last surgery. It's still in me. I still want to play. And I hope to be able to play this year. Retirement? No. Even though I use some Just For Men occasionally for my hair. I still have it in me. Q: So even though you have some gray hairs, do you think your game will show some age when you return? A: My first two years here there was some doubt as to whether or not I still had the ability. Was I getting old, or was it the ankle or whatever? I didn't feel that at any point until last year that I could do certain types of things. I feel it all hinges on the ankle and recovery of the ankle and whether it holds up. But I feel like I can still play . . . I didn't lose those skills. It may sound cocky, it may sound overconfident. I feel like if my ankle is OK, everything else will be fine. I may be a little rusty, but I feel, in the long run, I can help this team. Q: What's this about you having Michael Jordan nightmares? A: I haven't shot a basketball since Jordan torched me that last game (Jan. 16 at Washington; Jordan scored 32, Hill had 2.) It bothers me. It was on national television, too. I can't get Jordan back now; he retired. That's the last memory I have of being on the court . . . struggling and being hurt and not being able to. . . . Jordan's a great player, but the first time we played them at home, I was able to stay in front of him. And that last time I was like, 'Man.' That's the last thing I think of. That feeling of not being able to go out there in the second half and being unable to answer the bell. Q: Through this ordeal, what have you discovered outside the routine of basketball? A: I discovered that hospital food is not the best -- no offense to the various hospitals I've spent time in the last three years. Q: Seriously. A: I've discovered a couple things. I've had time, this last time around, to work on an art project we have unfolding. My wife and I have been collecting African-American art since about 1997. We have 46 pieces in this collection. We have various artists like Romare Beaden, Elizabeth Catlett and Hughie Lee-Smith. We kick off here with the tour of the exhibit at the Orlando Museum of Art in November. We're going to eight different cities, the Basketball Hall of Fame, Duke University. There's a coffee-table book coming with it. We have some people writing essays on artwork. Even Coach K [his former college coach, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski] wrote an essay. But I don't think he knows a lot about art. It's a fun, little project that has sort of allowed me an outlet. I've been involved in some things here locally. Some commercial real estate . . . this, that and the other. I've been my wife's unofficial manager. No Ike Turner here, though. Q: Coach Doc Rivers wonders how you've maintained your sanity through all this. How have you kept going and going? A: By no means has it been easy. I'm not looking for sympathy. It's been frustrating for the fans, team and the organization, but also at the same time, they've been patient. And everywhere I go, people come up, and they're encouraging. I appreciate that. It's been very supportive. On the anatomy of the lower extremities . . . Man, I could become a doctor. I know about all the drugs, the procedures, the different types of titanium that you put into screws. I know a little too much. There's been a lot that I've learned going through this and try to take good from the bad experiences. Unfortunately, sometimes in life, that's where you do learn, from the bad experiences. Q: If you weren't a patient person before . . . A: I'm extremely patient now. Which is probably good. God was probably preparing me for marriage and for fatherhood with this. I'm joking a little, but, definitely, patience is something. As athletes, man, we just feel like we can do anything. Maybe it's ego, maybe it's because we've had success, [but] we feel like, man, I can go out and score 30. We like challenges. You tell us we can't do something, and we want to prove we can do it. That's the way most athletes are wired. That's how I'm wired. In this case, it's like, 'Whoa!' Regardless of what you want to do, this [points to his ankle] has its own agenda, and you got to let it play itself out. That's when you have to be patient. Q: Have you given any thought of what might happen if the ankle betrays you again? A: I haven't thought about anything. I'm almost like Seabiscuit. Q: Seabiscuit? A: Yeah, you know, I'm like one of those horses that have those blinders on their face, and they just run the race. I'm not looking over here or over here. I'm just focusing on getting myself right. I'm just taking it one day at a time. I'm done with making predictions. I don't think I have a career in me like Jimmy The Greek. I'll leave the predictions to the media and the barbershops.
