In the history of the NBA, there have been a lot of players that have taken the breath of fans away from how they performed on the hardwood. There have been those that have shown they are good on the NBA hardwood, but the character they displayed off the court really made them standout. The latest guest on NBATV’s “#NBATogether” displayed an exceptionalism both on the court, even in times when injuries really tested that fortitude on and off of it as remarkable citizen, husband and father, and now as an incredible basketball analyst as part of the ownership group of the Atlanta Hawks, where he has used his platform to educate himself and the public to be better people in this current fight to end systemic racism.
Among the first things that NBA on TNT studio host and co-host of TNT’s “Inside the NBA,” presented by Kia Ernie Johnson touched on in his virtual interview with his fellow colleague at Turner Sports in Hall of Famer Grant Hill is the NBA’s restart to the 2019-20 season at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, FL after the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic put the season on pause back on Mar. 11.
The seven-time All-Star, five-time All-NBA selection and 1995 Kia Co-Rookie of the Year with fellow Hall of Famer and now assistant coach with the Los Angeles Lakers Jason Kidd, who now lives Orlando said of the season’s restart admits the rising positive Coronavirus cases called this time in our country “interesting.”
Hill, the No. 3 overall pick in the 1994 draft who played his 19-year career first with the Detroit Pistons, and then the Orlando Magic, Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Clippers referred to what our world is going through the equivalent of the 1918 Spanish Flu, the 1930s Great Depression and the 1960s Social and Civil unrest all at once.
“But I do think that sports is important and sports can play a role, and bringing sports back is important just for our overall psyche as country as we are dealing with all of these pressures right now.” Hill said about the NBA starting back up on July 30.
In terms of how the Coronavirus has affected the Orlando area, Hill said that early on the state of Florida was not heavily as impacted as the New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and some of the other Metropolitan areas were.
The roles have been reversed as the Southern part of the U.S. and the West Coast states like California and Arizona specifically have seen a major uptick in positive Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.
The rise in cases in Florida is especially troubling as the NBA and its 22 teams that are coming to Florida in a matter of days now for its restart on July 30, along with the WNBA starting their 2020 campaign at IMG Academy not too long before that on July 24.
Along with the players and teams ascending on Florida, some of the Turner Sports team is also going to be in the Orlando bubble to broadcast games, which will likely include Hill.
“So, there is a lot of uncertainty, a lot of unknown and maybe a lot of fear,” Hill said about what the NBA will be facing in its restart near Disneyworld. “I thought a few months ago when the NBA proposed this bubble idea, I thought it was draconian in a way. I thought it was a little extreme to sort of be contained for three months.”
“Now I’m actually pretty relieved that their taking the necessary precautions. That there will be a constant steady stream of testing. As you enter into the bubble you will be quarantined. The league doing everything possible to try to eliminate any kind of challenges or problems and certainly guys being able to go out and play.”
One of the eight teams that will not be a part of the league’s restart are Hills Atlanta Hawks (20-47), where Hill is a part of a group led majority and controlling owner Tony Ressler.
When Johnson asked Hill if the Hawks were a part of the restart and if one of players came to him and said they did not want to be a part of the restart for whatever the reason, Hill said that player would be supported.
Hill did add though that if he were still playing that he might have been that player that would have opted out of the restart.
The main issue though is that this disease of COVID-19 is not exact, which is the fear, the unknown and challenge.
But Hill said if he were in this position, he would have no problem sitting out this restart because of the unknown.
“There’s no blueprint. There’s no playbook for this,” Hill said of the state of affairs our world and the NBA world is in of its player being or not being comfortable coming back for the restart of this season. “Obviously the league and player’s association [NBPA] working together, consulting with all the medical experts that are out there, with infectious disease doctors who really can provide leadership and direction, and an idea of sort of how to best, you know, sort of deal with this pandemic as we resume playing.”
One of the things that Los Angeles Clippers head coach Glenn “Doc” Rivers said a few weeks ago to Johnson on “#NBATogether” that he preached to his team as they awaited of how the league would restart if it could to “win the wait.”
That they had to whatever they could to keep themselves physically and mentally engaged so that they would be ready for when a decision of made about the NBA restarting the season.
When it comes to which team did what it needed to do during this hiatus and will hit the ground running once play resumes, Hill said that NBA players are accustomed to not just a rhythm of a particular game but the rhythm of a season, and the routine.
To have that find a new rhythm as these player had to do as they waited for a definitive answer of where and when the 2019-20 season would resume, it comes down to having a great leader like Coach Rivers whose won before and has a way of bringing a team together, and has a way of keeping the main goal of this season square in his team’s vision, which in the case of the Clippers is to win a title.
“So, it will be interesting to see sort of who stayed connected, who stayed committed and can mentally, emotionally sort of prepare themselves obviously give themselves the best chance to win,” Hill said.
What will make this restart even more interesting, especially when the 2020 NBA Playoffs get underway is there will be no fans in attendance, which is something the players likely have never had since they were tweens.
To go from that to basically playing in the equivalent of what takes place in NBA Summer League play in places like Orlando and Las Vegas, NV with no one in attendance to provide that extra boost of energy to help you get to the finish line of a intense moment like the NBA Playoffs.
Hill said being a former player who battled through injuries in his 19-year career, particularly in his years with the Magic from 2000-07 perhaps this time off can serve as a great thing if you take the time to maintain your body during this hiatus.
He also said that the downside of being an older player and having this much time off that it is a challenge to ramp up the engine back up to play at the level that is expected to compete and succeed at the NBA level.
That especially makes it hard to predict whose going to win because in a normal playoff environment, we can go through the exercise and look at the brackets and see that unless the Lakers and Clippers in the West or the Milwaukee Bucks and Toronto Raptors in the East really fall off their rockers, things would come down to those four teams of who would represent their respective conference in the 2020 NBA Finals.
“There’s still a separation with some teams in terms of talent. But its really going to be hard to accurately pick the games,” Hill said of the possible difficulty of predicting how this postseason will shake out. “Until we see them, you know? It would be nice to see them play, and we’ll get a better sense of where they are.”
“That’s part of also the excitement of it all. This is so unknown that even the casual fan may tune because you know what, there’s nothing else to do there ain’t noting else to do and let me see how all this works and plays out.”
Along with dealing with taking on what has been called “the invisible enemy,” our nation in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks by law enforcement.
While the sports world as a whole has been put on pause because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, many prominent players and coaches in the sports world have risen up to lend their voices at peaceful protests across the country and on social media about how we have to take head on this longstanding problem of systemic racism in not just our nation but the world.
Recently, Hill former college coach Mike Krzyzewski gave an impassioned speech of this issue that has been a dark cloud over our nation especially for far too long.
In that impassioned speech that went viral, the College and Naismith Hall of Fame coach said, “When I was a cadet at West Point and the prayer is still, it’s a cadet prayer. In the cadet prayer, one of the segments of the prayer says, ‘Lord, help me choose the harder right. Help me choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.’ We as a country have chosen the easier wrong for four centuries. It is time to choose the harder right. It is time to end systemic racism and social injustice.”
Hill said to Johnson that anytime that he is in the presence of Coach K. it brings him back to when he was 18 years old with a “bad haircut.”
He called speech that Coach K., who has coached at Duke for 41 seasons gave essentially to all of us from regular citizens to the leadership of our nation in our nation’s capital one that was “real and genuine.”
“But I also know from behind the scenes ever since things started to ramp up, we’ve had a number of discussions,” Hill said of his conversations with Coach K. in the early stages of the pandemic. “We had former players along with Coach [K.] on Zoom calls. Having a safe, non-judgmental, you know, opportunity to vent, to emote, to share, to listen.”
Hill also said that Coach K. also conversed with other various leaders to get a better grasp and feel of why people, especially minorities in our country simply stood up and took to the streets to have their voices heard about how angry and upset of how African American lives continue to be taken at the hands and weapons of those that are supposed to protect them, and that a plethora of those in law enforcement are not taken to task for their awful actions that we as a country could no longer be in denial of.
He knew that Coach K. was going to speak to the nation about what minorities have faced as a nation for about 400 centuries but he did not know that the speech his former college coach gave was going to be that “powerful.”
When asked by Johnson what the conversations about race gone with his wife soon to be 21 years this month on July 24 in Grammy nominated singer from Canada Tamia and their two daughters in 18-year-old Myla Grace and soon to be 13-year-old Lael Rose on Aug. 9, Hill said that things like having access to education, money, and celebrity can be a shield to an extent from all the other things that come with being an African American.
Hill said that he and his wife because of their success on the hardwood and in the music industry, they have not had discussions with their daughters about race, class, and privilege in the past.
On top of that, Hill himself grew up with a famous dad in former NFL running back Calvin Hill, who played 12 seasons (1969-74, 1976-81) with the Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins, and Cleveland Browns and his mom Janet in Dallas, TX and Washington, D.C.
With all that has taken place, especially in the wake of the aforementioned deaths of Mr. Floyd and Ms. Taylor, Hill said that he and his wife have been forced to have those discussions with who he called his “inquisitive” 18-year-old that has asked a lot of questions and their now 12-year-old daughter.
“It’s really allowed us to share our own experiences or just things that have happened throughout our lives,” Hill said of those discussions his family has had about race. “So, those conversations we’re very important, and I think very necessary to help give her [Myla] a perspective. And in the process of doing that, we learn her perspective and some of her experiences. But she’s very much aware of who she is and her race and say maybe some of the challenges of being one of the very few African American students in her school, in her social environment, and so on and so forth. And so, all-in-all in our home, it’s been good.”
When it comes to deciding if there will be a serious change in how our society acts in the wake of this pandemic and how the vale of systemic racism has been lifted, Hill said of the narrative changing is something that goes back-and-forth about.
One reason Hill said that is because there is a part of him that feels there is this sort of “white self-preservation” that historically has occurred many times over the course of these centuries and will continue to rise.
Also, that we as African Americans and minorities can as Hill said be easily “pacified.”
A friend of Hill’s gave an example of this when he told him to imagine if a man is in prison, in solitary confinement for a lengthy period of time and suddenly they are let out of solitary confinement to join the rest of the population in that prison.
That person gets a jolt of energy from that freedom to socialize amongst the other inmates but you are still doing that in prison.
There is a part of Hill’s mind that says he thinks along those lines of minorities in our nation never being free of systemic racism, while another part of him that says what he is seeing from the protests, that have consisted of all races, creeds, religions and ages, which he has never seen in his lifetime.
When he sees images on television of people peacefully protesting and the images of how those demonstrations are diverse of different people holding up signs like “We Need Justice,” Black Lives Matter,” Justice Can’t Wait,” acknowledging that systemic racism is wrong gives him some sense of hope.
Hill also brought up that why this cataclysmic divide between minorities and Caucasians has simply grown over time is because of the guilt and the questioning of a Caucasian’s morality, and the positioning of the overall hierarchy of our nation.
“I believe quality people are not afraid of equality,” Hill said, “and what I’ve learned throughout all of this is that there’s been a number of quality people, regardless of your skin color who’ve emerged, spoken on this. And I believe have been moved to make change.”
In the leadup to the restart of the NBA season and the start of the WNBA season, there have been a number of players who have opted to sit out “The Association’s” restart and who have chosen to sit out this season of the “W” because they did not want basketball to be take away the focus from the social injustice that has been front and center in the news.
Those NBA players who will be in Orlando for the restart and WNBA players who will be in Bradenton for the start of their season Hill has pointed out being an excellent opportunity to keep this front and center.
He also said that it is necessary for him to believe that this moment has touched this country not this country in such a way where they have been called to action and looked with themselves asking how they can make change.
Over the years, the NBA has been an ally in driving social change and Hill feels that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wants the NBA to use its platform to make this monumental change, especially on the biggest stage of the NBA playoffs to allow players to express to the globe their feelings, emotions and thoughts on how we can make this world more equal for everyone.
“Yeah, we all have our brands. We all have social media. We can speak directly to our network, but its an opportunity to use this stage to impact the entire world, particularly here in the United States,” Hill said.
“I just believe that we can do more good, and we have guys that are outspoken, we have a league that is supportive of that, and I think we can continue with this moment and this platform by playing these games while the entire world is watching, and all the spotlight will be on the NBA.”
A big part of that change happening is some of the most influential people in the African American community coming together on projects to create that change.
Hill, future Hall of Famer and three-time NBA champion with the Miami Heat Dwyane Wade, who also his colleague at Turner Sports and Emmy, Grammy, and Oscar Award Winner Common collaborated as executive producers on a documentary entitled “The Most Beautiful Thing,” which Common narrates the story about a 1990s inner city African American rowing team.
When Hill first heard about this, he called it an “oxymoron,” but once he heard the story about this team of young African American men who grew up in different communities, that were affiliated with gangs that were brought together by the sport of rowing that really changed the trajectory of their lives and build a bond.
When Hill, Wade, and Common were able to revisit these men many years later, they learned that they reached out to the Chicago Police Department, which was captured in the documentary along with how them showing the “Chi-Town” cops how to row the boat.
Rowing is a sport Hill learned the importance of teamwork, which is something Johnson said he was familiar with because in the early part of his broadcasting career he did play-by-play of rowing, which was part of the Goodwill Games in Seattle, WA.
Johnson added that he got in those boats and learned firsthand that if you are not in concert with your teammates you will be in the water pretty quickly.
When asked by Johnson of being more nervous being interviewed by the late great Craig Sager or delivering his Hall of Fame speech in 2014.
Hill’s answer, being interviewed by Sager after getting drafted on June 29, 1994 at the Hoosier Dome, in Indianapolis, IN.
In that interview when Sager asked a then 21-year-old Hill about staring his NBA career, Hill said that he is “real nervous.”
“I’m not just saying it because I miss Sager and he was such a part of the NBA, Turner family. I was still young. I was ready to embark on this journey. Didn’t know what I was getting myself into,” Hill added about what he was thinking as his NBA journey began when Sager interviewed him 26 years ago.
Hills said he remembers the moment walking across that stage, reminding himself not to trip as he was in this complete daze as he was shaking the hand of the late great former NBA Commissioner David Stern.
When it came to his Hall of Fame speech six years back, Hill said of that moment he prepared what he was going to say.
To be interviewed by Mr. Sager who he watched for the last few years, Hill said he was a “nervous wreck.”
Hill got his nerves about him very quickly having a splendid rookie season averaging in that first year 19.9 points, 6.4 rebounds, five assists and 1.8 steals on 47.7 percent from field on his way to being as mentioned Kia Co-Rookie of the Year with Kidd.
That earned him a trip to Atlanta to be interviewed by Johnson alongside Kidd, who gave the longtime studio host of the NBA on TNT a signed Dallas Mavericks hat. Johnson received nothing from Hill, which he got a chuckle out of and said that he will get on Google to find a Pistons hat to sign and give to his colleague.
For 19 NBA seasons, Grant Hill was special both on and off the court. The lessons he learned from his parents and his college coach Mike Krzyzewski at Duke University where a major help in his NBA career and have served him well in his second act as an analyst and part owner of an NBA team in the Atlanta Hawks. Those lessons also provided him a way to take on marriage and parenthood and life in a way that no matter what goes on in life, he will observe the situation and do what is necessary to meet the moment.
Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 7/1/2020 8:30 p.m. edition of NBATV’s “#NBATogether With Ernie Johnson: Grant Hill;” www.google.com; https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hillgr01.html; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Common; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Blue_Devils_men%27s_basketball; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Hill.
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