The possibility of the return of George Hill in free agency

What has the IUPUI product been up to since his first stint with the Pacers ended a few years ago?

Utah Jazz + Sacramento Kings

Since the Pacers opted to bring in Jeff Teague to run the point, Hill has made his rounds around the association.

In July of 2015, Hill was sent to the Utah Jazz where he played in only 49 games during an injury-plagued season. Despite a sprained toe, sprained thumb, and a concussion courtesy of an elbow to the dome, the point guard averaged 16.9 points and 4.2 assists per game while shooting 47.7% from the floor. He continued his efficient play during Utah’s eight-game playoff run, scoring 15.6 points on a 46.9% conversion rate.

The following summer, two Indianapolis-natives decided they’d be leaving Salt Lake City; Butler graduate Gordon Hayward opted for Boston, while the former Jaguar signed his largest contract (3 years-$57 million) to play with the Sacramento Kings.

Despite receiving a significant payday, he went from a playoff team to a perennial rebuilding one. The former Jazz guard started nearly all of his games in Sacramento, but the team focused on developing their younger players, primarily point guard De’Aaron Fox, whom the team had selected fifth in the draft just three weeks before acquiring Hill.

In 43 games with the Kings, Hill’s averages were the lowest since his rookie season – 10.3 points and 2.8 assists – as a result of being in a fast-paced system that he didn’t fit.

The point guard had the luxury of playing alongside strong scorers (Tim Duncan, Paul George, Gordon Hayward) over the span of his career, but Sacramento’s team featured no players of that caliber and their 98.8 points per game average finished dead last in the association.

It didn’t take long to see the pairing didn’t fit and the Kings weren’t hesitant to get the significant contract off their books. The point guard was shifted from a team with minimal talent, and little sense of direction, to a team with arguably the most talented player in the league that also began the season misguided.

Cleveland Cavaliers

On the infamous day of February 8th, 2018, when the Cavaliers traded half of their roster, Hill was shipped to Cleveland in exchange for Iman Shumpert, $2.1 million cash and a 2020 2nd round pick. This brought Cleveland a definitive starting point guard who’d been alternating between Jose Calderon and Derrick Rose prior to Isaiah Thomas’s return, which was underwhelming and resulted in the front office dealing him to the Lakers the same day they brought in Hill.

Cleveland’s new point guard started the remaining 24 games of the regular season. The continuation of his season didn’t yield any positive improvement, as the Hill averaged just 9.4 points and 2.8 assists in 27.9 minutes on the court.

The transition didn’t help his shooting percentages either; his field goal percentage fell from 46.9% to 44.4%, and his three-point conversion dipped drastically from 45.3% to 35.1%. However, many teams struggle as they begin playing together initially and Hill was shifted into a particularly volatile situation that featured their fair share of internal drama.

As the past has shown with many Eastern Conference Lebron-led teams, the regular season was simply a segway into the common goal: an NBA title. Hill started in 18 of his 19 appearances that occurred through an NBA Finals appearance and ended in a four-game sweep from the hands of the Golden State Warriors.

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Scoring 9.2 points per game – the lowest playoff average aside from his rookie year – his abysmal 31.4% shooting from deep wasn’t conducive to the offensive scheme of letting Lebron handle the ball and draw a double-team, often ending in a kick out pass to a shooter for an open three.

After Lebron decided to take his talents to the City of Angels, the vision Cavs general manager Koby Altman had for the team drastically changed. As the 2018 regular season began, internal struggle resumed as the front office chose to focus on developing young players, including the recent 8th overall pick, Colin Sexton. The sudden change didn’t sit well with head coach Tyronn Lue or Cleveland’s veteran players, who felt they should try to remain competitive.

The departure of their superstar and tension among the organization manifested into Lue’s firing after an 0-6 start. Altman began utilizing the teams’ cap space to attain draft picks and younger players, which included trading their starting point guard to the Milwaukee Bucks.

Milwaukee Bucks

The trade allowed the Bucks to shed the contracts of Matthew Dellavedova and John Henson, as well as instantly upgrading their third guard in the rotation. However, the trade also brought the point guard into his most limited role (20.4 minutes per game) since his rookie season. Had Malcolm Brogdon not missed nearly two months, from mid-March until the second round of the playoffs, Hill’s role likely would have been smaller.

While the latter shoots a higher volume of threes than the former, Milwaukee’s new guard continued his bout with cold shooting from deep. Despite taking 46.5% of his shots from behind the arc (the highest of his career), he only nailed 28.0% of these attempts. In fact, his 31.4% three-point shooting at the end of the season was the worst mark of his career. After appearing in 47 games for the Bucks, Hill ended the season averaging 7.6 points and 2.3 assists.

After an underwhelming regular season, Hill’s shooting percentages bounced back once the playoffs began. Notching the second best playoff field goal percentage of his career, he drained 53.4% of his attempts (better than Middleton, Bledsoe, and Lopez), and averaged 11.5 points in the Bucks fifteen-game playoff run.

Attempting nearly forty percent of these attempts within 3 feet of the rim, the guard shot 70.2% in that range. To the comfort of Milwaukee fans, he was able to increase his shooting from behind the arc to 41.7% as well.

His 9-12 shooting netted 21 points in game 3 against the Celtics, which was a major factor in giving Milwaukee a 2-1 series lead. He scored 15 and 16 points in the following games before his best game of the postseason; a 24 point outing in the third game of the Eastern Conference Finals.

The guard was able to showcase his ability at drawing contact around the basket and sank seven of his nine free throws (as many disconcerting Pacers fans watched). Despite the clutch performance by Hill, the Bucks were unable to close the game and the loss sparked the Toronto Raptors into winning three more games, allowing them to advance to the NBA Finals.

Now that the former Pacers guard doesn’t have a guaranteed future in Milwaukee, let’s analyze what he could potentially offer a team if he hits the free agent market.