From Grant Hill to horses, let's journey. (USATSI)
From Grant Hill to horses, let's journey. (USATSI)

Friday is upon us and we're just a few dozen clicks away from wasting right through this day and getting into the weekend. But you've still got to find those clicks, waste those hours at work or school, and make sure you don't get caught in the process. By the way, you should always angle the computer in your office or cubicle to be facing away from the entrance, otherwise you really have to be quick with the minimize option.

A couple of things caught my attention during the week and it led me on a magical journey through the back alleys of the interwebs. Let's journey down the rabbit hole this week and celebrate a player that was far more impactful than his ankles would lead you to believe.

FIRST STOP: THE GRANT HILL REVENGE DUNK

This past Sunday, one of the greatest players that was never allowed to be turned 42 years old. Grant Hill, who was the next big thing back when he played for the Detroit Pistons, turned the page on another year and some people started reliving some of the big, well known highlights on his résumé. One of the more famous ones is the time he dunked on Alonzo Mourning. It popped up again this week when someone asked Hill's "Inside Stuff" cohost Kristen Ledlow to pass on a .gif of the play to Grant for his birthday.

Let's take a look at this play in video form now to really feel the impact of it all.

This dunk is amazing for a myriad of reasons. Hill's crossover on Dan Majerle to get free from the perimeter and be able to attack the basket is dirty. It's a phenomenal double between-the-legs move that leaves Majerle looking like he slipped a disc. Then the dunk on Zo is ferocious. Mourning is currently 11th on the all-time blocks list and that's with a lot of missed time due to his kidney disease. At the time of this dunk, he was one of the best defenders in the NBA and also one of the most feared defenders in the NBA because of his physique and demeanor.

Dig a little deeper into the highlight and you can see what Hill was so "turnt up" (as the kids say) on this play and after he drops the hammer down on Zo. Prior to this possession in the same game, Mourning and Hill had gotten into a tussle. Zo set a screen on Hill and tried to muscle him the entire way as they got tangled up. Hill wasn't going to have it and threw Zo to the ground. As Mourning hurries to his feet, Hill stands right here, never backing up, and started to kick the idea that he might be a soft or timid supernova of a basketball player.

Because there is always this need to fill the sporting moments and storylines with drama, there was this feeling with Grant Hill when he was a younger player that he wasn't a tough enough guy. He was mentally weak or timid. It's nonsense to think about, but the quiet, respectful guy couldn't possibly have a tough streak in him. This was one of those moments that put that thought process to bed. Hill got tangled with a guy who had two inches and probably 30 lbs. of muscle on him and didn't talk trash while he backed away. He just stood there in a defiant way with Mourning.

The story telling of Hill, his demeanor, and this play in particular was done fantastically by the Pistons for Pistons.com. While a nine-minute video may seem daunting, the editing and story telling in it makes the video fly by. Watch this video and then we'll get back to our journey. 

Hill may have been quiet, but sometimes you have to worry about the quiet ones. He was as close to an all-around player as you could find and he simply made everything look so smooth and easy on the basketball court. For example, there was a highlight in that video in which he crossed over Scottie Pippen. Pippen is one of the greatest defenders of all-time and Hill just makes him look like Bambi trying to figure out how to walk on a frozen lake.

He was just so fun.

THE GRANT HILL HIGHLIGHT REEL CAN HANG WITH ANYBODY

The Pistons' version of Grant Hill was truly unique. From the 1994-95 season to the 1999-00 campaign, there was one player in the league who averaged at least 21 points, seven rebounds, and six assists over the course of the entirety of those six seasons. It was Hill. If you drop it down to 21-6-6, it's still just Hill. 21-5-5? It's still only Grant Hill. It's not until you put the averages down to 21-4-4 that you get Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Allen Iverson, Chris Webber, and Gary Payton to trickle in. That's how rare Hill's talent was at the time.

His highlight reel often includes either a reverse dunk, him dunking on someone, or a filthy crossover that leaves a guy sliding in the wrong direction.

While the highlights are fun with him, being able to watch the way he controlled a game and offensive possession after offensive possession is really what impressed you the most about Hill. Nothing ever felt rushed, even when he had to hurry. Nothing ever felt all that forced because the way he played was so smooth. The process was a sight to behold and the result was just icing on the cake.

Because the internet is a vault of so many good things, you can actually find Allen Iverson's third pro game in which he faced off against Hill and the Pistons. Hill was one of the more respected players in the league in just his third season, and Iverson was as exciting as they come for rookie phenoms.

Hill truly took over down the stretch, scoring a healthy chuck of his 22 points to lead the Pistons back from a deficit of a couple possessions and pull out the two-point victory. Hill finished with 22 points, 14 rebounds, nine assists, and three steals in the game. Iverson's third game netted him 24 points, seven rebounds, and three steals. There were two highlights that I can't get enough of from this game.

The first was the move Iverson put on Grant Long during a fast break. It's something we had seen before with guys like Pete Maravich and it's a move we've seen since with Jason Williams and Rajon Rondo, but the fake behind-the-back pass for the layup is still one of those moves that gets me every time. 

The second was the move Hill put on the Sixers' defense near the end of the game when he went with the between-the-legs, spin move, and two-handed dunk to just completely dominate the defense. 

This is just some spectacular basketball on all counts.

Sadly and as we all know, Hill ended up having horrendous ankle issues that robbed him of his prime years in the NBA and kept him from creating one of the most formidable duos in NBA history with Tracy McGrady in Orlando. Ankle surgery after ankle surgery happened for Hill and he could never get back to being what he needed to be. He managed to have a bit of a resurrection in Phoenix with the Suns, churning out time as a solid role player that became one of the top perimeter defenders in the league.

On the "Open Court" series on NBA TV, Hill was pretty great in how he put perspective to the "what if" conversation surrounding his game.

GRANT HILL WAS PRETTY MARKETABLE

There were a bevy of commercials that included Hill, his polite and endearing personality, and an image that was fairly pristine. He was basically the main marketing component of the FILA shoe brand back in the 90's and was one of the main athletes in Sprite commercials. He didn't oversaturate the market, but it was hard to turn on a television and not see Hill selling his shoes or a clear soda.

The most famous Grant Hill-Sprite commercial is the one in which the kid thinks he can dunk after seeing that, "Grant Hill drinks Sprite!" In reality, I would imagine ingesting a soda to fuel you for an athletic endeavor is probably not the healthiest way to prepare your body. 

The FILA commercials with Bill Laimbeer trying to teach Hill how to be a mean player were pretty good, and maybe that's what got him to that moment with Zo. Laimbeer put him through a warehouse workout that looks like a deleted scene from Edward Scissorhands. It was all going really well until he started making Hill look more like Dennis Rodman.

There was also a follow-up commercial in which Hill is trying to get rescued from the camp but ultimately has to meet George "The Animal" Steele for another exercise in losing how nice he is. 

In what is both a funny commercial and an awkward exchange of two guys trying to bump up their personalities for the camera, this Kobe Bryant-Grant Hill Sprite commercial eventually just has Kobe dancing on someone's shoulder as Hill gives financial advice.

During the 1998 NBA Lockout, Sprite ran a great commercial with Hill and Tim Duncan, in which they both doing odd jobs for pay while they wait to be able to play basketball again. Duncan looks so out of control with that dog walking. 

This commercial is... well, I'd really like the full music video for "I'm a Cowboy" please.

Grant was able to branch out to some McDonald's commercials as well, including this one that has him distracted by french fries. I wonder if he learned this habit from his time as a teammate of Oliver Miller's?

H-O-R-S-E RULES EVERYTHING AROUND ME

Larry Bird helping sell McDonald's french fries will bring any hoops fan from the 90's to the commercials of him playing Michael Jordan for his Big Mac and fries. It was the fast food chain putting two of the most popular players in NBA history into an inventive game of H-O-R-S-E for a meal that could be found at nearly any corner for about $5 at the time. They just couldn't wait in line for that goodness and it gave them another thing to be competitive over.

The NBA tried a H-O-R-S-E competition a couple years ago and it did not go over well. It was simply too slow and there wasn't a lot of creativity with it, just a lot of long shots. What they were hoping for was bringing back some of the entertainment and excitement that they had when they ran these competitions with Pete Maravich as the lead star of them. He took down some of the great shot-makers in NBA history like Bob McAdoo and George Gervin in H-O-R-S-E as the rest of the basketball world wondered what the hell he was doing.

And in case you were wondering whether or not there are videos of horses playing basketball, there are multiple and they're 15 minutes long. Here is one of them

There is a lot of traveling, but this horse's hitching post game is pretty fundamental and effective.