I’m Worried About George Hill

Yes it’s early, and yes he almost had his head taken off against the Clips and missed the Phoenix game, but I know that I, you, and we all expected more from dude after his near meteoric improvement last year.

I grabbed Georgie’s stats from the first five games for each of the last three years, and without question, he is off to the slowest start of his career.  Even during his rookie season he managed to average 7 points a game at this juncture, and so far this year he’s just a shade over 6.  What’s more troubling is that he seems to have lost all of his three-point mojo.  Through five games he shot 33% and 67% in his rookie and sophomore seasons respectively, and this season he’s logged a paltry 10%…I could probably manage that.

There have been two minor statistical bright spots so far this year.  The first is that Hill’s rebound average has remained consistent instead of declining, and the second is that his assists average is modestly up to almost three per game.

One of the keys to the success of the Spurs last season was Ol’ Long Arms playing above his head for most of the season, and I fully expect for him to get close to that level again as the season inches along.  In fact, it’s almost not fair to be picking on this nit so early, but what kind of blogger would I be if I didn’t wildly overreact to moderately significant information?

One last thing to mention before closing that has my under-developed sense of optimism tingling.  I’m not sure what it is, but the sixth game of the season seems to have some sort of positive effect on George as he notched 17 points against Houston in ’08 and 22 against Toronto last year.  So heading into what will be #3’s sixth game tomorrow night I think we shouldn’t be too surprised if he breaks one off, versus the Clipps, that just might be possible.