His final season in Detroit, Grant Hill had the league’s third-highest scoring average (25.8), behind Shaquille O’Neal and Allen Iverson. At age 27, it’s not an exaggeration to say Hill was LeBron James, the NBA’s most complete player.

“At the time I got hurt, I felt like the game was becoming very easy for me,” Hill said. “I was entering my prime. There was an understanding of the game. I felt the next four or five years would be an opportunity and a time to really make my mark and really go for it.”

Things fell apart for Hill as he approached free agency in 2000. He broke his ankle in the Miami playoff series. The injury dogged him the next four years.

“I don’t think anybody really knows I started to have ankle problems at the end of the 1999-2000 season, probably mid-March,” Hill said. “I was still able to go out and play. I still played well, but I was getting a lot of treatment. It was certainly bothering me. As we got closer to the end of the season, my ankle was really getting worse. I was missing practice. To the point where we had a nationally televised game against Philadelphia and I just pulled myself. My ankle was just killing me. We get back, we get an MRI. They say it’s a bone bruise.”

Hill rested the final three games of the regular season and returned to the lineup for the Miami playoff series.

“It’s still bothering me,” Hill said. “I pull myself in the third quarter. They put me on some heavy medication and we had a long break between Game 1 and Game 2. While I was on this medication I felt great. Obviously it was masking the pain. Went out and played in Game 2 and I felt a pop in the second quarter, continued on in the third quarter and couldn’t go on. When we got back, we found out it was broken.

“I (had been) told everything was fine. I even found out that certain team doctors were questioning whether I was really hurt, thinking I was soft or whatever. This was after I had pulled myself from Game 2 against theHeat. At that time, when I found out I had broken my ankle, as crazy as this sounds, I was relieved. I finally had some confirmation, I finally had proof that I’m really not making it up.”

Hill’s pursuit of victories led him to team up with Tracy McGrady in Orlando. Hill had surgery on his ankle in May. He visited Orlando in July while still needing the help of crutches. He signed a contract in August. By Labor Day, the Magic had him participating in pickup games.

“They had me out there playing,” Hill said. “I might play once a week. My ankle was hurting. I wasn’t really supposed to be out there. I wasn’t supposed to be playing. I’d never really been hurt before so I didn’t know what rehab really was. I’m trying to play. I’m icing all the time. I’m getting through the month, probably playing pickup three or four times in the whole month. We get to training camp, I might have practiced once or twice during camp. I stumble through preseason playing three or four games.”

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced on Tuesday that Grant Hill of the Phoenix Suns has been elected to the Board of Governors for a three-year term. He is the first active player to ever serve on the Hall of Fame’s Board.

He will serve as one of 22 members of the Board of Governors, which is chaired by Jerry Colangelo.

“It is truly an honor to be elected as a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Board of Governors and to represent the living history of basketball,” said Hill. “It is important for the current generation of players to get involved with the Hall to help recognize the greatest in the game who have gone before us.”

BYU guard Jimmer Fredette, in an interview with XTRA Sports 910’s Bickley and MJ, said he’s patterned much of his game after two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash.

“I’ve watched him my entire life and he’s been a big influence in my game, just the way that he can get into the lane and be able to finish at the rim, no matter how he shoots it,” Fredette said. “And just how he can handle the ball and nobody can take it from him. He’s almost daring them to come get it so he can go by them.”

Fredette is confident he can make an impact in the NBA.

“It’s definitely going to be an adjustment, just like from high school to college, college to NBA is an even bigger difference,” Fredette said. “And I realize that, but I’m determined to play well. I’m determined to go out there and make a name for myself. I know I can do it, as long as I go out there and play my game, play well. I just have to earn the respect of my teammates and everybody in the organization and I know if I do that, I’m going to have a successful career.”

Similar to LeBron James this week when he drove to Quicken Loans Arena, Amar'e Stoudemire was denied access to the players' lot at U.S. Airways Arena when he drove himself to the game from his Scottsdale residence as a member of the Knicks in January.

"They wouldn't let me in," Stoudemire told the Daily News. "It's not like I left on bad terms."

Stoudemire says he was surprised but not upset by the action taken by the Suns.