Jordan Hill Not Expected To Re-Sign with Indiana Pacers
By Ben Gibson
It appears unlikely that the Indiana Pacers will re-sign center Jordan Hill.
The Indiana Pacers are losing their grip on the monopoly of the NBA’s Hills.
Jordan Hill isn’t likely to re-sign with the team this summer according to Pacers.com’s Mark Montieth, this is likely the case.
"Remember what it felt like to be left standing off to the side when the music stopped in games of musical chairs? That was Hill. Vogel couldn’t very well go beyond a 10-player rotation, and Hill was the one left out.He was barely heard from again. He sat the next two games, played nine minutes and scored six points in the next one, sat three more games, then played 30 minutes in the final regular season game at Milwaukee. He hit just 1-of-9 shots in 30 minutes, but grabbed 11 rebounds.He was scoreless in the playoff series with Toronto, appearing for a total of 15 minutes in five of the games. By then his lighthearted attitude seemed to be to his detriment.New coach Nate McMillan’s thoughts on Hill aren’t yet known, but he still seems the least likely of the Pacers’ free agents to be re-signed."
Jordan Hill started out the season being “actively harmful” before finding his groove within Indiana’s rotation. He was turning heads while running the pick and roll expertly with Monta Ellis, and starting to look better than he ever had with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Hill provided depth for Indiana in the front court as Turner developed into a starter and played a significant role in the Pacers 11-2 record in November.
But was the season rolled on — as Montieth mentioned above — Hill found himself out of the rotation as Ian Mahinmi and Myles Turner controlled most of the minutes as the center position, and Lavoy Allen taking what was left.
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It is easy to forget he was the Pacers best option as scoring in the post this season, but what likely has guaranteed his departure is the fact no one told him why he lost his spot in the rotation according to the Indy Star’s Candace Buckner.
"“Yeah, it’s tough, but I can’t do anything but be supportive and a great teammate. Especially when I feel like I did pretty good this season,” Hill said of averaging 8.8 points (the team’s best post scorer) and 6.2 rebounds. “Just to be out of the rotation like that is definitely frustrating, especially when you don’t know what happened or what you did. If you did anything wrong; if you don’t think you did anything wrong, nobody told you you did anything wrong. So now I’m like: ‘Question mark! Question mark! Question mark!’ What happened?’ ”"
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Even though Frank Vogel is gone now — and not knowing Indiana’s interest in re-signing him — it seems more likely he’ll be looking for a fresh start somewhere else.