A Child of Privilege Returns As a Man Among Men

Orlando's Grant Hill, 32, who endured five surgeries in four years on his right ankle, has regained the all-star form many thought he would never again show. (Kevin Kolczynski -- Reuters)

DENVER

When we think tough in sports, we think ornery, stubborn, a resilience transcending talent. If you were asked to name the toughest, most persevering character at this weekend's NBA All-Star Game, who would you say?

Allen Iverson, who always manages to pick that little frame off the floor? Shaquille O'Neal, hit and hacked, his 'bows forever in someone's esophagus? Ben Wallace, his tenacity governing the area around the rim? They all possess a special fortitude, almost a nastiness coursing through their careers.

They're rugged -- almost as rugged and tough as Grant Hill, the strongest player by far to take the floor on Sunday at Pepsi Center.

For all the faux scowls in the NBA, the clearing-out rebounds and the surface masculinity, the most persevering tale this weekend comes from a 32-year-old, Duke-educated veteran from Reston, the son of a Dallas Cowboy and an accomplished Wellesley grad.

"When you think of me, you don't think of street cred," Hill said, shrugging his shoulders Friday afternoon. "I know, people see me and think, 'What a charmed life.' The school I went to. My parents. My upbringing. It's all relative, though."

Tim Duncan shook his head when asked if five surgeries on his right foot in four years would force him from the game, the way it almost did for Hill. "I don't know if I could persevere through what he's been through," Duncan said. "I just don't."

Said Amare Stoudemire, who was just a gangly teenager when Hill played in his last all-star game in February of 2000: "To think that he was close to retiring and he could fight back from it and play again? It's motivation for all of us."

There were many inspiring stories filling up a Denver hotel ballroom. Iverson, poetically talking about growing old in a league of children. LeBron James, Stoudemire and Dwyane Wade -- Olympic teammates, the self-proclaimed "Young Gunners" -- enjoying their coming-out years. Manu Ginobili and Dirk Nowitzki, illustrating their international paths to the NBA. But Hill's story was better.

It's about a five-year odyssey of trying to play basketball again, an 18-month intensive rehabilitation, a night in an intensive-care unit and, ultimately, the most gratifying season of Hill's career.

He scored 39 points earlier this week for the Orlando Magic, the team that had never seen him healthy after January. Hill last scored that many points five years ago, while with Detroit. That was before Hill's heel was broken and realigned with his leg, before a 104-degree fever after the operation sent him into convulsions in March 2003. That was before a seven-hour surgery, in which doctors grafted skin and arteries from his left triceps to close the wound on his right foot and restore circulation. Today, he plays with a hideous incision, a virtual flap, sculpted from his own skin. But he plays -- cutting, moving, scoring in bunches like he used to.

He can laugh now about the time his wife, the singer Tamia, was pumping gas in Detroit before the couple moved to Orlando in 2000. Hill was sitting in the back, laid up after surgery, when a man walked up to Tamia at the service station. "You could do better," he said.

"I wanted to turn the car around after she told me," Hill said, laughing. "I was pretty useless."

"I think just overcoming the surgeries and finding a way to get back made some people view me in a different light," he added. "If there wasn't a respect there before there is now."

"I'm still amazed he's here," said Ray Allen, the all-star Seattle guard. "How he went about it is incredible. He knew he could beat this. He knew he was going to play. Quietly, he began his comeback and here he is."

Fitting, no? All those seasons in which Hill produced and put up numbers in Detroit, and few of his peers gave him the respect granted, say, a Jerry Stackhouse or a Tracy McGrady. Hill always attacked the rim, but his guile and his grace as he took flight always translated to too nice, too non-confrontational. Hill was always viewed as a great competitor, but some players mistakenly wondered if his core was hard enough.

Hill always knew where this logic came from, the resentment from some of his peers -- many of whom were young, black and poor growing up. They grew up in the city. He grew up in the suburbs. They had one parent. He had two. As a former Knick, who requested anonymity, once explained: "These guys see Grant Hill as having crossed over long ago to a world they can't relate to. Some guys always held that against him -- and the Duke thing, too. It's too bad, because he has more of their hunger than they'll ever know or accept."

Hill once told me that he never understood the backlash. "Isn't that what everybody wants for their children, to get out of a bad neighborhood and get a great education?" he said a few years ago. "My parents gave me the things many players in this league want for their children. Why is that so bad?"

No one in the NBA doubts Hill's credibility today. Whatever resentment or jealousy once existed has evaporated. Every player knows the strength and resolve it takes to return from one surgery, never mind five in four years.

From O'Neal to James, Kobe Bryant and others, players embraced and congratulated Hill this afternoon, just a little more than the next all-star. They all knew:

Grant Hill miraculously made it back, back to a league that finally respects the toughness he always had.