Pheonix is the perfect place for Hill to rise from the ashes

From the moment Grant Hill launched the football-like pass to Christian Laettner against Kentucky in the regional finals in 1992 to lead Duke to a 104-103 win in overtime, there as been a air of magic around him.
The win was on the path to Duke’s second consecutive championship, cementing the program as one of the nation’s elite.
Even as an NBA player, Hill garnered much attention and respect after he was drafted No. 3 overall in 1994 by the Detroit Pistons.
Twice he led All-Star voting, including his rookie year. In his two leading ballot years, Hill edged out two of the greatest NBA players to ever step on the court - Shaquille O’Neal and Michael Jordan.
He has always been a class act.
Now he has signed a deal with the Phoenix Suns, taking a smaller lump of money in hopes that he can get major minutes on the floor for a team that will be competing for a world championship.
For Hill’s sake, I hope Phoenix can put together a run next season and win a championship.
The ups and downs for Hill in his career have been plenty. He’s been the star. He’s had the comparisons to Michael Jordan. Then came the injuries. A nagging ankle injury and five surgeries later, Hill is ready again to be at the forefront of the NBA.
He can do that in Phoenix - the land of the Suns. For Hill’s sake, I hope that the Suns keep the pieces that they have gathered up over the last few seasons in place. Don’t go out and trade your nice, young talent for Kevin Garnett. Garnett is a star player, but Amare Stoudemire is the future. Shawn Marion is an electric player that is spectacular on the defensive side of the ball. He’s one of the few Suns that actually play defense.
It’s a system that Hill could excel in. Fans may get a glimpse of the Hill that was. The same Hill that had rim-rattling dunks at Duke in college. The same Hill that won two national championships along side Bobby Hurley and Laettner.
After being drafted by the Pistons, he excelled in his first six seasons. He was a prolific scorer and competed with one of the many Dream Teams that actually won Olympic glory.
The downturn came when Hill wanted to play for the Orlando Magic. The trade actually helped the Pistons in the long run as Hill was traded for Chucky Atkins and then unknown defensive beast Ben Wallace, who would later lead Detroit to a championship during one of the many injury-plagued years of Hill.
The idea was for Hill and Tracy McGrady to dominate the Eastern Conference.
The Pistons beat the Magic in 2003 in the playoffs, en route to their first championship.
Hill played four games his first season as a Magic. Over the next three seasons, Hill played 14, 29, and zero games respectively. In the 2004-2005 season, Hill played for 67 games, showing flashes of the Blue Devil that so many had admired early in his career. His sixth season with the Magic was again plagued with injuries. He only played in 21 games.
Last season, however, Hill showed resolve again, contributing to the Magic. He averaged over 14 points per game in 65 games along side the young phenom Dwight Howard.
Now Hill, the face we’d seen on so many commercials when he became a Piston, hopes to finish out his career with a championship in Phoenix. There’s so much symbolism there that I could probably go back to college and write a research paper on it.
If Hill can bounce back from the second half of his career and help get a trophy in Phoenix, then he would have risen from the ashes like a pheonix. His sun would once again have risen.
He may be a lot older now. He may be a little slower. He may not be a high-riser anymore. This all may be true, but Hill is still Hill.
Like so many that haven’t won championships, Hill deserves one. Of course maybe it’s just me, a kid who was a teenager in the mid-1990’s, wanting to see an icon from my childhood resurrected.

Listen up MLB...Bonds vote was a mandate

The vote for this year’s Major League Baseball All-Star teams should be a mandate.
A mandate of what you ask?
It should be a mandate that tells the government and the league’s administration to leave Barry Bonds alone.
It’s a mandate that the American public isn’t as turned off by what the mainstream media wants to turn Bonds into.
Bonds is not the evil that most suggest because of his alleged steroid use.
Instead, Bonds will be a starter on the National League All-Star team. In other words, government, get out of baseball.
While I myself, an avid baseball fan, love to see a pitcher’s duel, most fans would rather see a slugfest. I love to see great defense and great strikeouts. I love to stand up at a ballpark when a batter has two strikes against him, cheering for my pitcher to strike him out.
That’s just me.
America doesn’t have the same thought process.
Fans of the game want to see the long ball. Most fans want Bonds to break the all-time homerun record. Sure there are those that heckle him, but those are people in opposing parks. They probably would’ve heckled him anyway. They’re just using their “assumed” ammunition on him now.
After all, Bonds’s name is mud, right? That’s what the government and Major League Baseball has tried to make you think. For so long now, he has been the conversation topic all over the sports world. Media markets everywhere have discussed Bonds and his alleged steroid ties.
I’ve ignored all that. It has not changed my perception of Bonds at all. Personally, I really don’t care one way or another. All I’ve cared about is his race for Hank Aaron’s record. All I’ve cared about is how entertaining baseball was in the late 1990’s when Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGuire were electrifying the crowds.
Why can’t, we the media, just leave it alone? Why can’t we just put steroids back in the closet?
If some athletes want to use steroids, it’s their choice. If they’re caught, then they’ll probably go to jail.
The witch hunt for Bonds, however, needs to stop. It’s not good for the game. Ratings were at their peak during the late 1990’s and now they’ve faltered.
They’ve faltered because everybody’s sick and tired of hearing about how Bud Selig or the government is embarrassed or are after Bonds. Enough is enough. Leave the man alone. In the entire world of sports, the one man that I wouldn’t want to be is Bonds. The harassment is neverending.
Let’s just put the bad blood back in the closet. Let’s leave Bonds, Sosa, and McGuire alone. Let’s let whatever magic happened in the 1990’s live and breath in the minds of the children that were mesmerized by the homerun race.
Bonds is five homeruns from Aaron’s record now. Let the man break it in peace. Bonds deserved to be an All-Star this year. The fans got that one right. The one that they didn’t get right was Sosa. Sosa deserved to be on the All-Star team as well. He’s the best player on the Texas Rangers and he should have been rewarded.
Bonds, on the other hand, could quite possibly be the greatest baseball player to ever live. Personally, I’m not a fan. Not because he’s a possible steroids user, but because he plays for the Giants. Anytime the Giants come to Turner Field, I will boo him with the rest of the Atlanta Braves fans.
I boo him because he’s probably the best hitter to ever live and I don’t want him to crush the ball off of John Smoltz, not because I think he “might” be a steroids user.
On the flipside Mr. Bonds, it’s a two-way street. Drop the attitude and help your sport. Everywhere black athletes are talking about how there is a decline of black baseball players.
You’re the greatest baseball player to ever live and oh yeah, you’re also African American. Go on television, shoot commercials, and do everything you can to be an ambassador for the game. Baseball fans of all races deserve that.
You do that and I think everyone will leave this whole steroids mess where it belongs - in the past.