New team, same results for ex-Spurs guard Hill

Walking across the stage at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., on draft night last June, Kawhi Leonard fitted an Indiana Pacers cap carefully over his braids, then shook hands with commissioner David Stern as photographers captured his first moments as an NBA player.

Within minutes he got an early lesson in the business of the league. He could keep the blue and gold Pacers cap as a souvenir if he liked, but his rookie uniform would be silver and black.

The Pacers had used their 15th pick in the first round to select him for the Spurs, the small forward from San Diego State was told. Leonard was the biggest piece of a package sent by the Pacers so they could acquire George Hill, a combo guard who had become one of the most popular Spurs, both to his coach and the team’s fans.

The stoic Leonard, 20 years old at the time, accepted the news with a shoulder shrug, determined to stay in a moment he described as “living the dream.”

For Hill, that moment was a nightmare, even if it meant returning to Indianapolis, where he had been a high school and college star. Hill could think only of his three seasons with the Spurs, during which he had gone from a relative unknown out of a mid-major college to a key reserve on a 60-win team.

Embracing San Antonio as if he had been born in the shadow of the Alamo, he envisioned a long career as a Spur.

The player Gregg Popovich called “Indiana George” returns tonight to ATT Center, playing much the same role for the Pacers he had with the Spurs: a backup at both guard spots and defensive stopper whose true value defies quantification.

Indicative of the respect he had earned from a coach not given to sentimentality, Hill got a phone call from Popovich alerting him about the draft night trade hours before it was announced.

The conversation was difficult on both ends.

“Emotions were bare,” Hill recalled. “Coach Pop explained the nature of the business, which I respected, and explained how difficult the decision was and how bad he felt. At the time, he said it was something he had to do for the betterment of the team.

“It was difficult to swallow, but from Day 1 he had been honest with me. It meant a lot that he had the respect to give me a heads-up.”

Popovich described the difficulty of the decision to send Hill to Indiana.

“On a scale of one to 10,” he said, “it was a 10 and a half.”

Fully recovered from a Jan. 31 chip fracture of the left ankle that sidelined him for 12 games, Hill enters tonight averaging 9.4 points on 46 percent shooting and 40.4 percent 3-point shooting for a Pacers team with the fourth-best record (30-20) in the Eastern Conference.

That he is playing well in an important role with his hometown team offers some solace for Popovich.

“We’re thrilled for him,” Popovich said. “I want nothing but for him to be successful, and our players want the same for him, and he has been.

“One thing that gave us a little bit of peace about it is that we were sending him back home. He’s back in his hometown, and he was doing some great community work there, just like he was here. It made it a little more palatable, knowing he was going back home.”

No Spur misses Hill more than DeJuan Blair, the starting center who found a best friend in the locker next to his at the ATT Center.

“I was in a cab in New York City when I heard the news,” Blair said. “I was devastated. I said a few curse words.”

Before tipoff tonight, Hill will share a hug with Blair and the other teammates left from his three seasons in black and silver.

“It’s going to be kind of weird,” Hill said. “You know I’m going to have fun out there. It will be good to see everyone again and see everyone smile, but emotional because you miss those guys. You’ve created a bond with them, but now you understand it’s a business, so you play it like a regular game and have fun.”

mikemonroe@express-news.net

Twitter: @Monroe_SA

Blacktop aids Green’s NBA survival

NEW YORK — The shots went up one by one over the course of a week, all of them with the same result.

At one point over a four-game stretch, Spurs guard Danny Green had missed 17 in a row, the kind of misfiring streak that can crush a young player, much less a 24-year-old journeyman still playing for a contract and a career.

As the misses piled up, Green did not flinch. He did not blink. He did not betray much emotion at all.

“Just got to keep shooting,” Green said.

It is a fearlessness forged on the famed blacktops of New York City, where Green spent his formative years learning the game from basketball’s toughest crowd.

At Rucker Park, for example, the timid are eaten alive. Or worse, forgotten altogether.

“On a playground court, if you’re scared to shoot, you’ll be known as a non-threat,” Green said. “And then you won’t get picked up to play.”

Green grew up in the Long Island hamlet of North Babylon, equidistant between the posh celebrity hangouts of the Hamptons and the gray hardscrabble of the city.

There is no question where Green spent most of his time as a youth.

The tattoo on the inside of Green’s right wrist, one of scores etched across his body, says it all: “Made in New York.”

“The city,” he said, “is like Mecca.”

In his third NBA season, and second with the Spurs, Green has emerged as a key piece of coach Gregg Popovich’s rotation. In 22 games with star guard Manu Ginobili sidelined with a broken hand, Green averaged 24.4 minutes.

For the season, Green — a roster afterthought coming into training camp — has averaged 7.4 points, including games of 24 against Denver and 20 against Miami.

Now that Ginobili has returned, the 6-foot-6 Green — who has made two straight starts — aims to keep a grip on playing time.

He won’t go back to the end of the bench without a fight. From the time Green arrived in San Antonio late last season, Popovich admired his willingness to “let it fly.”

“It does show certain confidence in one’s abilities,” Popovich said. “He’s not awed by the challenge of making it in the NBA. It’s important you see someone has that in their system, that fire.”

Raised by a single father, Danny Sr., after his mother left, Green enjoyed a comfortable suburban existence on Long Island, where he starred at St. Mary’s High School before joining a future national championship team at North Carolina.

In 2006, just after Green’s freshman season at UNC, his father — a high school basketball coach — was arrested in conjunction with a massive drug raid, during which authorities confiscated 420 pounds of cocaine.

Green Sr. spent two years in prison for what the family says was a case of mistaken identity.

Perhaps the younger Green shows no fear on the basketball court because he knows what real fear is. There was a chance Green Sr. could have done 20 years.

Another of Green’s tattoos — an enormous portrait of him and his father together spanning the breadth of his back — commemorates that feeling.

“Just so I never forget,” he said.

Neither has Green forgotten the lessons of the New York City blacktop, which still guide him today.

“You’ve got to have a kind of attitude,” Green said. “Some of those guys are real dirty, physical. They talk a lot of trash. That’s what New York basketball is about.”

Green’s teammates have been equal parts surprised and impressed with his rapid ascension.

Brought to San Antonio twice last season on the recommendation of vice president of basketball operations Danny Ferry, who as general manager in Cleveland drafted him 46th overall in 2009, Green got his big break this season, on Jan. 4.

With Golden State’s Monta Ellis going nuts on the Spurs in Ginobili’s first game out, Popovich turned to Green, who at this time last season was in the Development League. Ellis finished with 38 points, but Green limited him to 4-of-11 shooting in the fourth quarter as the Spurs rallied for a victory.

“It couldn’t happen to a better person,” small forward Richard Jefferson said. “The only thing I ever tell him is to slow down a bit, because he gets so excited. He’s a young kid playing well.”

Defense got Green on the floor, and defense is what kept him there throughout an 0-for-17 shooting slump.

Having the courage to step up and shoot No. 18 only aided his cause.

When that shot finally went in Saturday in New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from where Green’s game was born, a weight was lifted.

Green finished with 10 points in the win over the Nets, making half of his eight field goals and a pair of 3-pointers.

He figures the inhabitants of the New York City playgrounds, the toughest crowd in sports, would approve.

“You don’t want to let anybody disrespect your game,” Green said. “That’s probably one of the biggest things you learn growing up in New York.”

jmcdonald@express-news.net

High-end escort service sees business dip with lockout

Most of the grim stories on the effects of the lockout have centered on arena workers and others who are struggling financially because of the strike.

I’ve got to give sports business reporter extraordinaire Darren Rovell of CNBC.com credit for pursuing a new financial angle to the story.

Rovell talked to “Henry,” who runs an escort business in New York City.

“Henry” tells Rovell that business is down about 30 percent because of the lockout. Charges, according to Rovell, are typically $400 to $4,000 per hour, depending on the woman.

“There are replacements but they aren’t as consistent and not nearly as high paying,” “Henry” told Rovell.

People are hurting all over because of the strike. Rovell did a nice job of advancing the story as the lockout continues.