A spring in his step

Throughout his 13-year career, Suns forward Grant Hill has been more Cessna than 747, preferring the comfort of lower altitudes on his flights. Sure, he has had his YouTube moments: a dunk on Alonzo Mourning here, a one-handed slam on 7-foot-7 Gheorghe Muresan there, both of which came when Hill was a fresh-faced member of the Detroit Pistons. But in recent years, as age has grounded him and surgeons have taken to treating his left ankle like a Thanksgiving turkey, Hill has turned the layup into an art form, mastering the right- and left-handed bounce off the backboard.

Because of that, you could forgive a double take when a player wearing a burnt orange jersey bearing Hill's name barreled down the lane and threw down a poster-perfect dunk on Mavericks 7-1 center DeSagana Diop during a game at Dallas last month. The dunk brought the Suns' bench to its feet while drawing a half dozen variations of "ahhh" from the partisan crowd.

"You know, I used to do that a lot," Hill said, a smile creasing his face.

Hill, 35, has been scoring in a variety of ways in Phoenix. Before missing seven games earlier this month after undergoing an appendectomy, Hill was averaging 15.9 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists in his first 34 games as a Suns starter (he returned Jan. 22, but missed the team's last game with back spasms). Along with being consistent, Hill at times has showed shades of the player who finished third in the MVP voting in 1997. On Dec. 2 against the Knicks, Hill scored 28 points with eight rebounds and seven assists; on Dec. 22 against the Raptors, he scored 25 points in 25 minutes.

"He's a dream," Suns coach Mike D'Antoni said. "He can get 18-20 points so easy."

Hill's success this season is a departure from his rocky tenure in Orlando, where for six seasons D'Antoni's dream was the Magic's nightmare. The Magic believed they had bought themselves an NBA title when they acquired Hill and Tracy McGrady in the summer of 2000. But McGrady proved to be decidedly one-dimensional and Hill was plagued by ankle surgeries (five of them to be exact) and played in just 200 of a possible 492 regular-season games with the Magic, pocketing $93 million for his troubles.

One might presume that Hill would feel indebted to an organization that made such a huge investment in him only to see a limited return. Not so, according to Hill

"I didn't feel that way at all," he said. "And I don't think [the Magic] did either. They might have been disappointed, but it's crazy to think I owed them anything. I needed a fresh start. My last year in Orlando, I put up decent numbers, but I was tentative. I didn't try certain things. I was wondering how I would feel when I woke up. But now I'm not even thinking about it. I'm excited to play basketball again."

Even with his history of injuries, Hill was a hot commodity when he hit the free-agent market last summer. Almost half the teams in the league contacted Hill's agent in the first week of free agency, with Phoenix, Miami and Hill's first team, Detroit, making the hardest push. After weighing his options, Hill signed a two-year, $3.8 million contract with the Suns, spurning more lucrative offers for a chance to play in Arizona

For Hill, the attraction to Phoenix was threefold: the chance to play for D'Antoni, who was known for holding light practices and has never been regarded as a task master; the opportunity to play with three established stars in Steve Nash, Amar� Stoudemire and Shawn Marion; and the fact that Phoenix employed some of the top medical professionals in the NBA, headed by athletic trainer Aaron Nelson and Mike Clark, president of the National Academy of Sports Medicine.