Wary Grant

There is no Plan B. Grant cannot get injured again this year, there cannot be another surgery. This is it. This is all the marbles.

Orlando Coach Doc Rivers, before the season

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The good news for the Magic: Grant Hill is (still) back.

As comebacks go, his is still more harrowing than heartwarming. He can’t play in all the games yet, or any practices. Once he had to take a week off and when he tried to come back, in a victory over the Lakers, Rivers thought he was favoring his left ankle and held him out of the fourth quarter.

The doctors said it wasn’t the old fracture site, merely tendinitis. Of course, they were hopeful the last two seasons too, and Hill was similarly reassuring, right up until the announcement he had to pack it in.

Not that the Magic wasn’t told this was how it would be, but on Thanksgiving at Rivers’ home, he says, “My son prayed for Grant Hill’s health. The sad thing was that he beat me to it.”

On the bright side, their prayers may be answered.

Hill is playing better than he ever has for Orlando, increasing his minutes as he goes, which is welcome news for a team that’s always waiting to see if it still has a season and he still has a career. He has played more games this season than in his first two with the Magic, combined.

The calmest, most understanding and most patient of them is, of course, Hill himself.

Well, on the surface, anyway.

“I kind of expected it, especially with the history of the situation, that the ankle would receive a lot of attention,” Hill says.

“You know I also understood that there were going to be bumps and bruises along the way. We had one the first week in the season [at Milwaukee, where he came out after nine minutes] and everyone was all panicked, like it was the end of the world.

“I understand it and I hope it just doesn’t become a distraction for the team.”

Worse distractions followed and others may too, which is the only way it can be until he’s all the way back.

“We’re playing against the Lakers,” Rivers says, “and Grant’s out. Four and a half minutes left, we’re drawing up a play in a timeout. Tracy [McGrady] is trying to catch my eye. He’s looking at Grant, like, ‘Is Grant coming back in?’

“And I’m trying not to acknowledge him.”

On the other hand, it used to be distracting when Hill’s season ended in December or January too.

“I really believe Grant is going to be OK,” Rivers says. “I believe this is something we’ve got to put ourselves through. It’s a distraction, but I’d rather have this distraction, with Grant, than the one we had last year, without him.”

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Grant & Tim to Tracy & No One

The Magic’s present and, it hopes, future configuration for a team led by Hill and McGrady was Plan B, after Hill signed in 2000 but his friend Tim Duncan, who was close to joining him, by all accounts, went back to San Antonio.

McGrady had just turned 21, was only the No. 3 prospect of that free-agent class, having just averaged a career-high 15.3 points in Toronto, but he was from Central Florida and jumped at the chance to go home.

Now, McGrady is considered Kobe Bryant’s rival for the mythical title of best perimeter player. Hill, who was supposed to play Batman to Tracy’s Robin, never got the chance.

This was no problem for Hill, who was always different, a statesman in a super-athlete’s body. Preternaturally gracious and deferential, he had to learn how to be a star at Duke and Detroit.

If they could only stay on the court together, Hill and McGrady would be a dynamic tandem, resembling the great Michael Jordan-Scottie Pippen partnership as much as any without Jordan can.

Like Jordan and Pippen, McGrady and Hill are position-transcending players, capable of running the offense, scoring, rebounding and defending anyone from a point guard to a power forward. This season, with Hill flying again, Miami’s Pat Riley said they were even better than his old Magic Johnson-James Worthy duo.

The problem was Hill’s ankle, broken during the 2000 playoffs when he was a Piston, repaired in Cleveland by a medical team that put three screws in. It still hurt the next fall, forcing him out four games into his Magic debut.

A second surgery followed, performed by Baltimore doctors ... as was Hill’s third surgery, less than a year later, when he lasted 14 games in his second Magic season.

Without him, the Magic struggled mightily to be mediocre, and Hill struggled with the thought of never getting back to them.

“There were bone spurs that were preventing the fracture from healing,” he says. “They took out the spurs and drilled holes into the fracture site. Then they took my blood and spun it to increase platelets to promote healing.”

There’s something to be said for being on the cutting edge of medical science, but the way they were going, one more operation and it looked as if they might have to shoot Hill into space to try the procedure under weightless conditions.

“It was difficult,” Hill says. “You go through a lot of different emotions.

“I think the hardest part, really, was trying to play the last couple years. The ankle’s not right, you know something’s not right and you almost feel like, ‘Is this how it’s going to be from here on out?’

“And, of course, being away from the team, being on crutches, the whole thing, thinking, ‘Is it over?’ and all the different things that go through your mind, both good and bad during this process.

“Like I said, I’m a better person, a better teammate and, hopefully, a better player. I will be when all is said and done but I’m just glad to be playing.”

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Back on Chain Gang

Every day, the coaches, the management, the training staff, everyone is, “How do you feel? How do you feel?” So I just look at it as everyone really likes me and really cares about my well-being.

-- Grant Hill

Even for players with young legs that hurtle them 40 inches into the air, the season is a grind, exacting a toll that starts at their toes and works its way up.

Today’s courts are portable and built over air, which provides a little cushioning, but NBA life is still about taping, icing, anti-inflammatories and dreams of summer.

Or as Bryant noted last season, at 23: “It’s not the age, it’s the mileage.”

Thus, it isn’t surprising that the Magic has this season scoped out according to the dangers it poses for Hill, who was supposed to be brought along slowly, playing perhaps 25 minutes a game and pulled at the first sign of trouble, whether he got that hurt look or not.

He wouldn’t be practicing with the team in the beginning. He could attend, of course, and listen and shoot and ride the bike, but no way were they going to let him subject himself to more pounding between games.

Then there were the dreaded back-to-backs and the four-games-in-five-nights double sets, the ultimate test, which Hill has yet to pass.

Nevertheless, this season’s Hill looks more like the old one, with explosiveness he hadn’t shown in Orlando and a hell-for-leather approach that says that whatever happens, he’s ready.

“I remember when Doug Collins had him [in Detroit], he always complained about the beating Grant takes,” Rivers says. “And I didn’t really understand it, watching him last year. But watching him this year -- he’s playing like Grant Hill again. He drives. He scores tough points. He’s an Allen Iverson, as far as taking hits. I mean, he’s on the floor all game.

“And with that foot, the way he plays, they don’t go together. It scares the hell out of you.... If he doesn’t get right up, I mean, you’re thinking, ‘Oh, here we go.’ ”

In 30 minutes a game, Hill leads the team in rebounding, at 7.5, is co-leader in assists with McGrady at 4.6 and is third in scoring, 15.9. Projected over the 40 minutes he once averaged and hopes to again, that would be 21 points, 10 rebounds, six assists.

Now, except for when he’s hurt, you hear people saying that everyone forgot how good he was, which they did.

Not that Hill would blame them, if he were the blaming kind. He almost forgot, himself.

“Every day since I started playing pickup ball, I’m gaining more confidence and I’m reminding myself, along with my teammates, what I used to do and what I still can do,” he says.

“As good as I’ve been, I think I can be better. I’m better than where I was the first day of training camp, I’m better than where I was the first preseason game, I’m better than where I was the first regular-season game.

“I’m just kind of, like, sometimes I’ll do something, like, ‘Wow, I haven’t done that in three years!’

“Last year I got so frustrated because I didn’t have it right away. I wasn’t patient. That’s one of the things I’ve learned -- it’s going to take some time. You’ve got a little rust, you’ve got to take some time. It’s not even just being away for two years but having the injuries and the mental hurdles, the physical hurdles to get over. But considering what I’ve been through, I feel pretty good.”

Considering what his teammates have been through, they’re all feeling pretty good, although at 13-11, breaking in a new lineup with the 6-8 Hill, 6-9 McGrady and 6-8 Mike Miller at guard and small forward, they have work to do to regain their promise.

For himself, Hill says he’s ecstatic for every moment, from the oh-no-not-again ones to the exultant running-jumping-dunking ones. It’s not a done deal or a happy ending yet but it has a chance.