Today, I stumbled across an article on the Huffington Post, where some guy named Chris Kyle (nope, never heard of him either), accused Grant Hill of being a doper (nope, I’m not kidding). You see, after battling a bad ankle over the years, Grant Hill played in all 82 games this season, the first time since his days in Detroit.
From the Huffington Post:
"How?How does a 36-year-old man play in all 82 regular season games and do it in style, finishing his final game with 27 points, 10 board, 5 assists, four steals and a block?If I were hoping, I’d say that Grant Hill is an Outlier, straight from the pages of Malcolm Gladwell, but if I were betting, well, you get the idea…I don’t like to think about Grant Hill taking HGH, or whatever else, because he’s always been one of my favorite Blue Devils. I say that because some people might think it’s unfair for me to the raise the performance-enhancing drugs issue with a guy like Hill. I don’t know. But I do know that my friends and I sit around and talk about stuff like this."
This might be the most irresponsible article I have ever read on the Huffington Post? Seriously. I read that site more than any other on the web and I still can’t believe I came across this filth.
Without a trace of proof, without a single whisper from a single source, this person can simply write an article on one of the most popular news sites, linking Grant Hill to HGH, just because he can’t believe Grant Hill can do it?
Chris’s so-called proof is that Grant Hill played in all 82 games this season after suffering through injuries throughout the latter half of his career? Is it really that amazing? Let’s look back.
In Grant Hill’s first six years in Detroit, he was one of the NBA’s best. He scored 9,383 points, grabbed 3,417 rebounds and dished out 2,720 assists. Only Larry Bird and Oscar Robertson produced better numbers in their first six years.
Then came the trade to Orlando and the health issues. Granted, it wasn’t a rash of injuries, it was just one bad ankle, followed by many failed attempts to fix it. Because of this ankle, Grant Hill played in only 48 games in a four-year stretch from 2000-2004.
After taking a full year to recover in 2004, he came back and played 67 games. The following year though, he only played in 21 games thanks to a hernia injury caused by the fact that he was still favoring one ankle. After that season, Hill went and saw a new specialist in Vancouver. The treatment appeared to help, although it wasn’t an instant recovery (you know, the kind a player usually gets when he’s using HGH). Hill came out and played in a respectable 65 games, along with a trip to the playoffs that season.
Following 2006-2007 season, Grant went to Phoenix. His ankle held up again and he played in over 70 games. He did miss two weeks because he suffered an emergency appendectomy. And finally this season, he played a full 82, although his stats were his lowest in years.
So after seeing all this, Chris Kyle things, but hopes it’s not true, that Grant Hill used HGH. Stunning.
What do I see? A player who had a bum ankle, who slowly, year after year, worked his way back to complete health. But wait, Chris says 36-year-old players are suppose to break down at that age. Obviously, Chris doesn’t take into account that when Grant missed all those games, his body avoided the NBA beat-down in 280 games during that stretch. So maybe, just maybe, it’s reasonable to assume that if Grant Hill’s ankle got stronger and stronger over a three-year period, then he could somehow manage 82 games in one season. Is it really that much of a stretch? The guy comes off the bench, averaging under 30 minutes per game. Can HGH be the only way?
Again though, this isn’t a post about Grant Hill and HGB. Like I already said, there’s not a single ounce of evidence linking Grant to the drug or to anyone associated with HGB. And unlike Chris, when I know a person has been a class act his whole life and has never done anything in his career or life to tarnish the game he loves, guess what…he gets the automatic benefit of the doubt in my book.
This article is about Chris Kyle though, who despite getting a top-notch education at Duke University, just doesn’t get it. What was that award winning reasoning he had again:
"I don’t like to think about Grant Hill taking HGH, or whatever else, because he’s always been one of my favorite Blue Devils. I say that because some people might think it’s unfair for me to the raise the performance-enhancing drugs issue with a guy like Hill. I don’t know. But I do know that my friends and I sit around and talk about stuff like this."
No Chris, no one thinks it’s unfair to write a B.S. article about Grant Hill because you like the guy. My issue is the fact that you get to use the Huffington Post to post a ‘gut feeling’ simply because you and your friends “sit around and talk about stuff like this.” Discussing Grant Hill and drug use without a shred of evidence with your friends IS the proper forum. Trashing a great NBA player and a good guy with no proof whatsoever in a national news site is slander.
It’s no different if I wrote that Chris Kyle’s mother was a whore, who sleeps with men for money. That would be wrong. Sure I can sit around with my buddies and debate the merits of the whoring mother of Chris Kyle, but to post it on this site would be wrong, no matter how much my gut says it so. I shouldn’t do it because I don’t have any proof that she works the streets for money.
Just imagine the possibilities if I used his logic.
– Tyler Hansbrough uses HGH. My friends talk about it all the time. Look at his body, he’s built. I have no proof, but I’m just saying.
– Crying causes Cancer. Again, I have no proof, but a friend and I were talking about it yesterday.
– When the Tar Heels win, a baby dies. Sure I’ve never seen it happen. But come on, at one point in this world a puppy had to die when Carolina won. It just makes sense, right?
That’s really all I can say about it. A classless article by a clueless writer. Huffington Post, if you’re looking for a real writer, let me know, my neighbor’s kid is pretty good at making shit up out of thin air.