{"id":36269,"date":"2013-06-19T22:21:32","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T02:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=36269"},"modified":"2020-07-06T22:21:51","modified_gmt":"2020-07-07T02:21:51","slug":"grant-hill-probably-wants-to-kill-jason-kidd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=36269","title":{"rendered":"Grant Hill probably wants to kill Jason Kidd"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

No seriously, I wouldn\u2019t be surprised that behind that cool, calm and collected demeanor that Grant Hill always displays to the public, that there is a demon inside of him.\u00a0 And that\u2019s not a reference to his fancy white-collar Duke education and that he was also a Blue Devil back in those days, but more of a metaphorical devil of jealousy or resentment \u2013 towards the existence of Jason Kidd.<\/span><\/p>\n

From the day they broke into the NBA in the same year, to just weeks ago when both had declared their retirement after 18 seasons, so often was the case was whenever Grant Hill\u2019s name was mentioned, it wasn\u2019t long afterward that Jason Kidd was brought up.\u00a0 It\u2019s fun for me to theorize by claiming it, and it\u2019s most certainly realistically not deliberate, but as far as I see it, Jason Kidd has spent his entire career essentially, ruining Grant Hill\u2019s career.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Both were drafted in 1994, and although neither went #1 (that would be the far-less successful careered Glenn Robinson), Jason Kidd was selected before Grant Hill, going #2 to the Dallas Mavericks while the Pistons picked Hill with the #3 pick.\u00a0 From the onset, Hill probably had to have been disappointed not being the #1 pick, and the lucrative bonuses that come with, but to the credit of Robinson, he was averaging like 35 points a game for Purdue before going pro.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kidd on the other hand, there was little reason why he should have gone ahead of Hill; after all, Kidd played just two years at California before jumping into the draft, whereas Hill was the highly-pedigreed reigning ACC Player of the Year for \u201cprestigious\u201d Duke, where he had gone a full four years, appearing in the NCAA championship game in three of those years, winning the national championship twice\u2026 but it should be noted that the one year where Grant Hill and Duke did not make it to the finals was in 1993, where they lost to who else?\u00a0 A Jason Kidd-led California Golden Bears squad.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shit, even before they went pro, Jason Kidd had already cockblocked Grant Hill once.<\/span><\/p>\n

But anyway back to the crazy conspiracy theory.\u00a0 Regardless, Grant Hill was touted as the cream of the 1994 draft class despite not being the #1 pick.\u00a0 He was personable, clean-cut, Duke educated, friendly, and was most importantly a very good basketball player.\u00a0 This was also the year that Michael Jordan \u201cwas retired (for the first time<\/em>\u00a0[AKA suspended]),\u201d so everyone and their mother was eager to see whom \u201cthe next Jordan\u201d candidates were, and Grant Hill\u2019s name was frequently on the list, due to his ability to kind of do it all like MJ did.<\/span><\/p>\n

But although Grant Hill had a fantastic rookie season with good all-around game averages in points, rebounds and assists, Jason Kidd captured the imagination of basketball fans everywhere in his own rookie year.\u00a0 Although Kidd\u2019s scoring wasn\u2019t as prodigious, nor were his rebounds, as he was several inches shorter and a point guard, he was the far better passer, doling out more assists, and often in highlight variety, getting him plenty of television time in the process.\u00a0 But most notably was a ridiculously torrid second half of the rookie season for Jason Kidd, where he recorded like twenty triple-doubles (paraphrased), and everyone began singing Jason Kidd\u2019s praises.<\/span><\/p>\n

And it was no more evident how much Jason Kidd\u2019s performance meant to the eyes of the NBA, when they took the pussy way out and declared\u00a0BOTH<\/em>\u00a0Grant Hill and Jason Kidd as co-Rookies of the Year.\u00a0 If I\u2019m Grant Hill, I\u2019m pretty furious about this snub.\u00a0 Co-anything in any sport is pretty insulting, and it\u2019s the coward\u2019s way out for those in charge of declaring any sort of superlative.\u00a0 Hill was the more consistent scorer and rebounder, and although it\u2019s not nearly as expected from his position, was a pretty good passer in his own right.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine that Grant Hill didn\u2019t feel the least bit slighted by anointing someone else as 50% of the same honors at what he might have felt should have been unanimously his.<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout the next 17 years afterward, they actually had fairly similar careers, bouncing around to a few other teams as they grew older.\u00a0 But while they were in their young primes, both appeared in numerous All-Star games, and traded punches in the honors categories over who might have been better, or was having the better the overall career.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not to say that Grant Hill was always second fiddle to Jason Kidd throughout his career though.\u00a0 It\u2019s perfectly within reason to say that there are a couple of things that Grant Hill enjoyed before Jason Kidd made it to the party:<\/span><\/p>\n