Francis in the same class as the Big O, Magic & Grant Hill

In what season was Hill a top ten player?

 

His final season in Detroit. I can argue for any of the 3 years before that as well.


For the love of God, don't sit here and show me that Francis averaged 21/6/6 in his best season, when Grant Hill averages better than that even including his last 3 years in Orlando.

 

well... grant hill was all NBA in 1997. that year, he was CLEARLY one of the five best players in the league.

i'm not sure about this, but that year he was top 3 in mvp voting too... ? i don't remember.

i don't even know why we are having this discussion. what do we hope to prove? that hill is better than steve? like somebody said, that and a quarter gets you a stick of gum.

 

if these stats aren't impresive then why aren't all of the top tier points at the very lease avg this in their first five years.

 

97, The Rockets had Barkley and Olajuwon, they played Seattle who had Payton and Kemp, and then they lost to Stocton and Malone, not to mention David Robinson, Michael Jordan, Jason Kidd, Antonio McDyess as well as others. That year Hill was not clearly better than any of these players.

 

Steve haters now claim rebounds aren't important, you haven't got the memo?

 

then why weren't these players voted to NBA first team?

oh that's right, it's a conspiracy.

 

I believe all these players made it out the first round of the playoffs that year.

 

The year Malone won the MVP, Jordan was 2nd, Hill 3rd. In my humble opinion, that would probably mean he was a top 10 player that year.

 

In '97 Antonio McDyess was top 10? Hell, I didn't think he was doing anything even before his injury. Did this guy even make it to the playoffs?

Stockton is one of the best point guards to ever play the game of basketball but overall, are u really suggesting that Stockton was better than Grant Hill that year?

 

*In 1999-2000 ranked 3rd in the NBA in points per game with 25.8 and 20th in field-goal percentage (.489)

*Named to the 1997-98 NBA All-NBA Second Team after leading the Pistons in scoring (21.1 ppg, 12th in the NBA), assists (6.8 apg, 13th) and steals (1.77 spg, 11th)

*Led the NBA in triple-doubles for the third consecutive season in 1997-98, with 4, and has 28 in his career

*Named to the 1996-97 All-NBA First Team and was the winner of the IBM Award for the 1996-97 season

*Has appeared in 8 career NBA Playoff games, averaging 21.9 ppg, 7.0 rpg and 4.8 apg

*Participated as a member of the gold-medal winning U.S. Men's Basketball Team in the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics


I would say that in this stretch, he was clearly better than Steve.

 

hill was a top 10 player. and still would be if he wouldnt have injury problems.

and if you dont agree with that. your either too young to remember or very ignorant.

 

Stocton and Malone went to the finals, yes I believe he was a better player. McDyess went to the playoffs, he played with Jason Kidd in Pheonix.

 

99-00 was Hill's sixth season. So you can't count that one yet because Steve hasn't played six seasons. Other than that, their stats and team wins are fairly even through their first five.

 

I was addressing your comment that he was never a top 10 player, or better than Steve.

 

1996-1997.

McDyess. No playoffs. Robinson. No playoffs. Kidd. Only made the playoffs after getting traded form Finley, Cassell, and change that year. Even that, got bounced in the 1st round as a 6th seed.

David Robinson missed almost the entire season due to injury. Hence, the Spurs won the rights to Tim Duncan that year. McDyess? Are you kidding? The guy averaged 18 ppg and 7 rpg that year. Nice player, but the guy might not have been a top 10 power forward that year. Jason Kidd? 10 ppg, 9 apg, and 40% shooting sure does put him in the top 10. He might have finished tied for ROY with Hill, but he sure didn't make the 1996 Dream Team over Hill.

Hill was named to the All NBA 2nd team 4 times. He was named All NBA 1st team once. Won the IBM award for Player of the Year(measures statistical contribution) in 1996-1997, which was an award where pretty much only Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson won the previous 8 years.

So in recap, the guy was at least All NBA 2nd team 5 out of his first 6 seasons in the league. So I guess that implies he is at least a top 30 player in your book.

Let's go over this one more time. 1996 Dream Team. 12 players. All NBA 1st team. 5 players. All NBA 2nd team. 5 players. Top 3 in MVP voting. 3 players. Hill falls into all 4 of those categories. This is starting to be just plain silly if you can't realize Hill was a top 10 player at one point in time. Stop making stupid arguments.

 

McDyess didn't get traded to Phoenix until the 1997-1998 season. He was on a bad Denver team in 1997. Look it up.

 

Francis's stats are comparable to Hill's the first five seasons of their careers, their team won about the same number of games that period. Its not a stupid argument. All the rest are ancillary arguments, if Hill was a truly a top ten player, he would have gotten out of the first round of the playoffs. Their on court results are not that different from each other.

 

Would you say Kevin Garnett was not a top 10 player for all of those seasons he was knocked out of the first round?

 

i dont understand how people cannot understand that a really good player cant be on a bad team sometimes.

there were 30 teams, soon to be 31. talent sometimes gets spread fairly then to some teams. so just because you have crappy teammates and you cant get them into the playoffs doesnt mean your not that good.

grant hill was an awesome player. i would love to team him up with yao for a few years and see what they could do. probably more so then tmac even.