The worm was weak when he was in SA.
I liked Hill, why would you dislike him?
The Worm was the worst kind of distraction when he was in SA; that Spur team was damned good. Shoot, Hill actually had a hell of a team AND coaching staff.
What struck me as odd at the time (and got me all foolishly bent out of shape towards a team that I generally respected) was how the SA organization, primarily Hill and the man who helped push him out the door (Brother Popovich), responded with such smugness about the Thorpe-Drexler trade that Houston made that year, sardonically thanking the Rockets for delivering them the Western Conference championship.
SA was putting distance between itself and Houston, and it was obvious to everyone in the west that the Spurs were the team to beat. Houston felt it had to make a move. For SA to opine negatively about a rival's trade seemed....odd.....unusual. The press can do that all day, and usually will, but not a team. Am I overplaying how the Spurs addressed that move at the time? Probably. Perhaps their media blew it out of proportion. Buck Harvey wouldn't do that, would he?
I liked Thorpe as a player; I knew how much he hated leaving Houston, but the opportunity to reunite the two key members of Phi Slamma Jamma outweighed everything. As it turned out, it was the perfect move for a half-season.
As for Hill, I couldn't quite figure out why he was hired in the first place, except for his wannabe Pat Riley/Phil Jackson look. I mean, prior to being handed that stellar Spur squad, his teams were never particularly good. Then, upon allowing himself to get drawn into a conversation about a rival's acquisition, the aforementioned Drexler trade, he invited the wrath of the lesser known basketball gods. I think WORM probably drew more of their wrath than Hill and Pop.
