| How Much Is Grant Hill Worth? Authored by Keith Schlosser - July 9, 2009 - 5:12 pm
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Even if many teams aren't spending this offseason, you can rest assured it's only because they are preparing for next summer, when they will certainly have to overpay to acquire talent.
With the inflation of the market comes a new standard for what the available talent is worth. Setting the standards are second-tier reserves, like Jerome James and Jared Jeffries, who were given $30 million contracts in recent seasons.
Even a player like Hedo Turkoglu has taken advantage of the new standard, cashing in on a contract worth $53 million with the Raptors.
Turkoglu is talented, but when did a player with his talents and production become worth so much?
The type of contract he received from Toronto (through a sign-and-trade with Orlando) should be reserved for All-Stars around which a team can center a supporting cast (see the models of the Celtics and Lakers, the champions of the last two seasons).
With the Raptors giving Turkoglu that much money, the team's hands are going to be tied as they look to bring in more talent under inflated conditions.
That leads us to Grant Hill.
In this market, one would think that a six-time All-Star would at least warrant a team's mid-level exception.
Think again.
Various teams, such as the Suns, Celtics, and Knicks, have Hill chomping at the bit for a contract worth the biannual exception -- about $1.9 million.
Hill was an MVP-caliber player when he hit the market in 2000, having spent the first six seasons of his career with the Pistons. He signed a contract with the Magic that summer, only to experience a whirlwind of problems, appearing in just 200 of a possible 492 games over six regular seasons due to injuries.
Over the past two seasons, Hill has bounced back with the Suns after signing for the team's smaller salary exception, playing a supporting role to the team's stars -- Amare Stoudemire and Steve Nash. He also has fought through minimal injuries, even playing in 82 games for the first time in his career last season.
Hill has reinvented himself as, simply put, a nice complementary starter, nowhere near the player he once was.
But come on, where is the respect?
He is widely regarded as one of the league's most intelligent players and is coming off one of the most consistent seasons of his career. Hill averaged 12 points per game on a career-high 52.3 percent from the field, also contributing 4.9 rebounds and 1.1 steals in just 29.8 minutes per game.
According to RealGM, Hill "deserved" to make $9,028,575 last season, while maintaining a "Reina Value" of 357 percent (a statistic that measures a player's efficiency in regards to his salary).
Turkoglu, who received that massive contract, deserved to make $10,126,984 last season, just over $1 million more than Hill, with a Reina Value of only 40 percent.
Hill has many things to offer to any team, both tangible and not. As he enters the twilight of his career, he is still in search of his first championship ring, but that should not be an excuse for teams to low-ball him.
After playing for a small contract in the last two seasons, Hill may want to take advantage of this market, just as so many already have. That type of response would undeniably be a wake-up call to many teams.
Only time will tell what kind of decision Hill will make. During free agency, there are many things that weigh on a player's mind.
We will have to see if Hill opts for a bigger payday, or decides to chase that championship ring that so many players crave. |
