Grant Hill Retires: A Closer Look At Hill’s Career - Unfulfilled Destiny?

Grant Hill, who was supposed to accept the torch from Michael Jordan as the face of the NBA in the 90s, announced on Saturday his retirement from competitive basketball after spending 19 productive seasons in the NBA.

The 40-year old Hill finally closed the final curtain on his professional basketball career, which saw him winning Rookie of the Year in 1995 and playing in multiple All-Star games.

Hill played with four different NBA teams, but the highlight of his career came in his early years with the Detroit Pistons - the ball club that selected him first overall in the 1994 NBA Draft.

Hill made an impact right away in his first year with the Pistons, averaging 19.9 points, 6.4 rebounds and 5.0 assists over 70 games. He continued to improve different dimensions of his game in the following years and started to take over as the face of the franchise.

Gifted with great athleticism and scoring ability, Hill was widely recognized as the heir apparent to Michael Jordan but a series of injuries - particularly on his left ankle - prevented him from living up to the hype.

Hill, who became just the fourth player to amass 9,393 points, 3,417 rebounds and 2,720 assists after his first six seasons, was never the same player again after the injury.

Playing with a fragile ankle, Hill spent the remainder of his career as a decent role player for the Orlando Magic, Phoenix Suns and the Los Angeles Clippers. Although he had a resurgence in 2004-2005 season, Hill's explosiveness just wasn't there anymore.

Hill, other than the shortcomings, crafted a pretty good post-injury career as he put up solid stats for the Magic and the Phoenix Suns.

He played his last season with the Los Angeles Clippers but injuries again forced him to spend majority of the season on the sidelines.

Hill averaged 16.7 points, 6.0 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 1.2 steals during his career. He was also selected to seven All-Star teams and five All-NBA selections.

"I've been hinting at it for the last few years and you get to a point where you just don't want to do it anymore. But I've enjoyed it, I've loved it," Hill said during TNT's pregame show before Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals.

Before he started his professional basketball career, Hill had an outstanding college basketball years at Duke, winning back-to-back National titles with the Blue Devils.