Grant Hill laid the foundation of his Hall of Fame career in Detroit. And he nearly put the finishing touches on it here when the Pistons were competing for championships a decade later.
"I almost came back in 2007," Hill said in a recent interview with The Undefeated after refurbishing a pair of basketball courts in Detroit's Chandler Park through a partnership with FILA.
At the time, the Pistons were in the midst of six straight trips to the Eastern Conference Finals. Hill was a 34-year-old free agent coming off his final season with the Magic, who had just been swept by Detroit in the first round of the 2007 playoffs. Hill said he talked with then-Pistons GM Joe Dumars, then-head coach Flip Saunders as well as veterans Chauncey Billups and Lindsey Hunter "and Detroit wanted to pay me and everything."
"They were gonna bring me back and it came between Phoenix and Detroit," said Hill.
In the end, Hill said he "took less money to go to Phoenix" on a two-year, $3.8 million deal because "I didn’t want to come back to (Detroit as) a shell of myself."
Hill was a five-time All-Star who averaged 21.6 points, 7.9 rebounds and 6.3 assists in his six seasons with the Pistons. He was traded to the Magic in the summer of 2000 in the deal that brought Ben Wallace to Detroit and fell to 16.4/5.0/3.1 in six injury-marred seasons in Orlando. He sunk to 14.4/3.6/2.1 in his final season before free agency.
"I wanted to stand on those Detroit years and I didn’t want to come back and not be the same player, and it was almost like I needed that for me, Hill said. "I needed to be able to hold onto those Detroit years, particularly after going through some real dark moments. Now the reality of it is, with the team they had, I didn’t have to be my old self (Laughs.) I look at it now, I loved my time in Phoenix, and sometimes you just need a whole new change of scenery, but in reality, with that team and the way they played and their experience, I didn’t have to be the ’90s version of myself. I know I would’ve fit in with that crew and liked that crew a lot."
Hill said he even brought his wife to Detroit for a Pistons-Magic playoff game "and I was like ‘Maybe we should come back,’ just the energy. They were still drunk off that championship success and that team was still knocking on the door, so it was fun to experience. So, anyway, it almost happened. I was that close to coming back for sure."
Hill spent the next five seasons with the Suns instead and helped the team make a run to the Western Conference Finals in 2010. He averaged 12.1 points during his time in Phoenix and closed his NBA career with the Clippers in 2012-13.
Hill, 49, also told The Undefeated "it would be huge" if the Pistons ever retire his jersey.
"I am beyond thrilled to have had the opportunity to play there and to be a part of the history of the franchise and proud of what I did," he said. "We didn’t win a championship and that was disappointing and that was the goal. That was what I said during my press conference when I first came, that my goal was to win a championship, so I failed in that respect, but I went out, competed and played hard and tried to lead and be good in the locker room."
As for the infamous teal jerseys the Pistons introduced (and later retired) in Hill's third season?
"JUst because I played in teal doesn’t necessarily mean I was a big fan of it," he said. "I had no choice. At the time, I didn’t quite get it. I know that teal was sort of a color of choice in the ’90s and you think about Charlotte and Vancouver as new franchises, expansion teams, and they had teal. So whatever focus group at the time determined that teal was the color of the future, but I never quite embraced it. I never felt like it quite fit Detroit. I wore red, white and blue my first few years and nothing is more perfect than that. It’s synonymous with the Pistons and tradition. At the time, I thought about the Lakers or Celtics, ‘They’re not gonna change their colors.’ So, that was something that I didn’t quite get or understand, but, whatever, you go out and play."