Grant Hill helped the United States win Olympic gold in 1996. He would have been in the team again in 2000 had it not been for an injury. And he was one of the university kids who beat the first “Dream Team” in a shrink before the 1992 Olympics.
Now American basketball is bringing him back.
Hill will become the national team manager for men after the Olympic Games in Tokyo, American basketball said on Saturday. He will replace the retiring Jerry Colangelo, in a move where one Basketball Hall of Famer takes over for another in the critical role of assembling teams that will compete for gold.
“It’s just an incredible opportunity, also an incredible challenge,” Hill said Saturday. “I was lucky enough to take part in international play – the Pan American Games, of course the Olympic team – and I was a fan of Team USA going back to the 1984 Olympic team when I first fell in love with The more I thought about it, the more intrigued, excited and willing I was to roll up my sleeves and move on with this tremendous responsibility. “
Hill’s resume is excellent. He played 19 NBA seasons, was an All-Star seven times – which would probably have been more than the single problems that derailed his career – and he made five All-NBA teams. At Duke, he helped the Blue Devils win national championships in 1991 and 1992.
Hill entered the Hall of Fame in 2018 and worked for nearly a decade as an NBA and college basketball analyst for Turner Sports. And he’s part of the final four for the Final Four men this weekend in Indianapolis, the sixth consecutive year he’s been on the team.
He will remain in the broadcast business after taking up his US basketball position.
“Grant is a proven leader of consistency and character who will help us achieve our twin goals of winning international competitions and representing our country with honor,” said Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Basketball Council, and a retiree general, said. “With this announcement, I also want to emphasize how much Jerry Colangelo appreciates everything he has done for American basketball over the past 15 years.”
And Colangelo did a lot.
The role of managing director was created for him in 2005 after the Americans lost three matches at the 2004 Athens Olympics and returned with an extremely disappointing bronze medal. Colangelo has since overseen the process of selecting players and coaches, and Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, who led the U.S. to the Olympic gold medals in 2008, 2012 and 2016, and now Gregg Popovich, San Antonio, as head coach.
In major competitions with Colangelo as managing director, the American men won 97-4. Colangelo’s departure was not unexpected; the 80-year-old makes no secret of his plans to retire after the Tokyo Games, which have been delayed one year until this summer due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I plan to spend an incredible amount of time with Jerry, shadowing him this summer, and I think the experience will definitely help as we move forward,” Hill said. “He’s just a valuable resource and has done an exceptional job, so you can’t help but learn from someone like Jerry.”
No matter what happens in Tokyo, Hill will take over at a hectic time. The delay of these Olympics oppresses everything; the next basketball world cup is only two years away, and the Paris Games are only three years out.
Hill knows that the rest of the world is catching up with American basketball – or has caught up. He predicted it would happen in 1996, when he was part of Dream Team II that won the gold in Atlanta, and he is not alone in believing that the game has found a new gear internationally due to the success of the first Dream Team four years before that.
Hill was a 19-year-old high school student when he was brought in along with Bobby Hurley, Chris Webber and other people to see the American team with Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Patrick Ewing and more. The college kids won 62-54 in the first game; a debate has since raged over whether American coach Chuck Daly threw out the match to make a point that no team was unbeatable, but there is no debate about how the day in California helped the NBA stars come together .
“We had a great time,” Hill said. ‘That experience – the chance to practice, learn from it, spend time with the greatest team ever put together – it was not a formal event with a medal ceremony and the like, but it was definitely a crucial moment for me and my development and my growth as a player. ‘
Hill’s job that day was to beat the best of American basketball. His job going forward will be to make sure that does not happen.
He’s already starting to plan.
“The brain works,” Hill said.