Grant Hill helped the United States win Olympic gold in 1996. He would have returned to the team in 2000 had it not been for an injury. And he was one of the college boys who won the first “Dream Team” in a fight before the 1992 Olympics.
Now American basketball is back.
Hill will become the managing director of the men’s national team after the Tokyo Olympics, USA Basketball said Saturday. He will replace retired Jerry Colangelo, in a play where one Basketball Hall of Fame takes over from another in the critical role of bringing together teams that will compete for gold.
“It’s just an amazing opportunity, also an incredible challenge,” Hill said Saturday. “I was fortunate to participate in international games (the Pan American Games, of course, the Olympics) and I was a fan of the American team returning to the 1984 Olympics when I started falling in love- me basketball. The more I thought about it, the more intrigued, excited and more willing to roll up my sleeves and move forward with this incredible responsibility. “
Hill’s resume is elite. He played 19 seasons in the NBA, was an All-Star seven times, which would probably have been more if it weren’t for the ankle problems that derailed his career, and he formed five 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 has worked as a basketball analyst for the NBA and Turner Sports University for nearly a decade. And he’s part of this weekend’s men’s Final Four broadcast team in Indianapolis, the sixth year in a row he’s been on that crew.
He will continue broadcasting after taking up his basketball job in the United States.
“Grant is a proven leader of consequences and character who will continue to help us achieve our twin goals of winning international competitions and representing our country with honor,” said Martin Dempsey, chairman of the American basketball board and general retired. “In making this announcement, I also want to highlight how much all USA Basketball associates appreciate Jerry Colangelo for all he has done for USA Basketball over the past 15 years.”
And Colangelo did a lot.
The role of general manager was created for him in 2005, after the Americans lost three games at the 2004 Athens Olympics and returned with an extremely disappointing bronze medal. Colangelo has since overseen the player and coach selection process, including Duke Mike Krzyzewski (who led the United States to the Olympic golds in 2008, 2012 and 2016) and now Gregg Popovich of San Antonio, to serve as to head coaches.
In the big competitions with Colangelo as managing director, the men from the United States have gone 97-4. Colangelo’s departure was not unexpected; the 80-year-old did not hide his plans to retire after the Tokyo Games, which were delayed a year until this summer due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I intend to spend an incredible amount of time with Jerry, overshadowing him this summer and I think that experience will definitely help as we move forward,” Hill said. “It’s just an invaluable resource and he’s done a remarkable job, so you can’t stop learning from someone like Jerry.”
Whatever happens in Tokyo, Hill will take over at a hectic time. The delay of these Olympics compresses everything; the next Basketball World Cup is just two years away and the Paris Games are three years away.
Hill knows the rest of the world catches or has achieved American basketball. He predicted that this would happen in 1996, when he was part of the Dream Team II that won gold in Atlanta, and he is not alone in the belief that the game found a new team internationally due to the success of the first Dream Team four years earlier.
Hill was a 19-year-old sophomore when he was brought along with Bobby Hurley, Chris Webber and others to search the American team that featured Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Patrick Ewing and more. . The college kids won 62-54 in that first fight; Since then, there has been debate over whether U.S. coach Chuck Daly pitched the game to claim that no team was unbeatable, but there is no debate about how that day in California he helped bring together NBA stars. .
“We had a good time,” Hill said. “That experience (having the opportunity to practice, learn, spend time with the best team ever) was not a formal event with a medal ceremony and the like, but it was certainly a pivotal time for me and my development and my growth as a player “.
Hill’s job that day was to win the best in American basketball. Your job in the future will be to make sure this doesn’t happen.
He is already starting to plan.
“The brain works,” Hill said.