Milwaukee Bucks Ranking the Roster: George Hill Descends at 13

In another example of the “what have you done for me lately?” attitude that often imbues sports fandom, next up off our roster-ranking island is one of the two unjustly-scapegoated Bucks in the wake of the Boston series: George Hill. Befitting of that status, he edged out a rookie who’s only played 12 G League games (but could become a decent NBA player!) and Serge Ibaka, who played in exactly 3 minutes and 8 seconds of that series—none of which came over its last five games. Some people just need someone to blame, and with no room for the benefit of the doubt, Hill slides to a humiliating 13th in our yearly exercise.

When Hill came to the Bucks in late 2018 as a salary-matching piece to help Milwaukee get off two pretty bad contracts (John Henson and Matthew Dellavedova), he struggled with his shot and made little impact for the rest of that regular season. In the playoffs, though, he entered the good graces of all Bucks fans thanks to a big series against Boston, picking up the slack for an again-ineffective Eric Bledsoe. Hill re-signed with the Bucks in free agency in 2019 and went on to become their most important reserve in what became a COVID-shortened season, actually leading the NBA in three-point percentage. Entering that 2019–20 season, readers voted him fifth in these rankings. Though we understood why it was necessary, no one was happy to see him get shipped out in the Jrue Holiday trade in November 2020, and Hill himself seemed miffed for having to leave the team.

It was heartening to see there were no hard feelings just nine months later when Hill returned to Milwaukee, this time on a two-year deal to fill the backup point guard role, a spot that had no real answer during the 2020–21 championship season. Many clamored for another ballhandler off the bench after the general ineffectiveness of DJ Augustin and—spare for a couple of games in the East Finals—Jeff Teague. Welcome back George Hill. Even at 35, that signing seemed to bring some warm fuzzies to fans last summer. He wound up at eighth in this same poll last year, befitting of his place in the bench mob pecking order behind super-subs Bobby Portis and Pat Connaughton.

His past service to the franchise meant apparently nothing to a certain... let’s just say temperamental segment of the fanbase, who soured on Hill in a big way as the year went on. I can’t say I’ve seen fans turn on a player so significantly in a role that proved to be not very vital to team success in 2021. The Hill hatred reached Bledsoe-ian levels in the Boston series, after he was forced into action likely before fully recovering from an abdominal strain that kept him out in the first round. Even worse, he continued to play through a neck vertebrae injury that previously sidelined him for a month and a half, forgoing what would have been season-ending surgery. Again, no benefit of the doubt. Just an easy punching bag.

Granted, his regular season wasn’t very good. Plus, his cheap and expiring contract makes him a good trade piece, even if you like him as a player. So why did he play in May, and why is he still on the Bucks’ roster? It can’t be chalked up to this oddly pervasive but false idea some have that Bud only plays vets (it’s not that he favors vets... the Bucks just haven’t really had any playable young guys since Donte DiVincenzo). With a wing rotation vastly outsized by Boston, Hill’s still-steady defense plus a distinct height and experience advantage over Jevon Carter (remember: Carter did not appear at all in the NBA Finals for Phoenix) meant he made more sense to trot out against Boston, even not at full health. Truth be told, all those times Tatum switched onto him, Hill never got beat and stayed right at the Boston star’s hip. He just was giving up too many inches vertically, and for all Carter’s defensive savvy, he would have given up two more. So it goes when you lack a solid and long wing defender in Khris Middleton.

People needed a target for their displeasure at losing in seven to one of the league’s best teams—and I can’t overstate this—despite missing the team’s second-best player. Seeing the hot takes and vitriol after that series ended raised a quandary to me: what if Milwaukee lost to Brooklyn in seven (or fewer games) in 2021’s second round? Bud booted Bobby Portis—now a universally-beloved figure in Wisconsin thanks in part to his Finals performance—from the rotation after Game 4 because the Nets were just a bad matchup for him, which often happens for role players in playoff series (after all, that’s why they’re role players and not bonafide starters). Would the front office have unceremoniously cut bait, with no objection from scorned fans, bitter that he couldn’t help his team get past their biggest obstacle in the East? Just an example I thought of to illustrate how silly finger-pointing after a close defeat can be.

Ideally, next time the Bucks are in the postseason, Middleton will be in tip-top shape with other sizeable wings like Joe Ingles and—wildly optimistically for a rookie with scant high-level experience—MarJon Beauchamp around to spell him. That prevents role players like Hill from being miscast as badly as they were in May, having to guard up a position or two while also trying to help fill a massive scoring gap. We know that Hill hasn’t been a creator for a long time, and though his 3P% slipped drastically to 30.6% last year, it’s reasonable to expect that a 38% career shooter from deep will trend back upward in that area. Furthermore, a full offseason for the now-36-year-old Indianapolis native is exactly what the doctor ordered after two interrupted and wackily-scheduled seasons, so let’s hope his neck is fully healed.

Again, with a healthy Middleton and Holiday in the playoffs, a bench ballhandler isn’t nearly as critical as we saw a few months ago, plus a recovered Ingles can certainly help in that area too. This could allow Hill to function in the role he did from 2018–20, as a spot-up shooter who occasionally initiates the offense while stifling opposing guards. The question is if he’s capable of that at his age and after an injury-riddled age-35 season, but I feel a lot better about him being that player instead of what he had to attempt against Boston. It’s also something the Bucks hopefully won’t need that much of, maybe 8–10 minutes per game à la Teague. While a healthy Ingles or a younger but still unproven Carter could be that eighth guy, so long as he’s not actually washed up, Hill might be worth a look in that role based on past success... if he’s still on the roster next April and not traded elsewhere on his expiring contract.

With that, we move on to the twelfth spot in our yearly rankings. We’re firmly in that tier represented by choices 2 and 3 above: guys who won’t play much unless there’s an injury or foul trouble for one or more of the typical top 6–7 players in the rotation. A few of those players are now appearing on our list too.