For most of last season, Solomon Hill didn’t just see writing on the wall. It was all over the box scores, too.
The Indiana Pacers did not pick up the former Arizona Wildcat’s fourth-year team option, declining the chance to keep Hill for the relatively low rate of $2.3 million. Hill didn’t appear part of the Pacers’ future or even, at times, the present. His playing time often sank into the single digits last season.
His head sunk, too, at least for a while.
“At some point I started to think, ‘Hey, I can’t get my option picked up for this price? Am I gonna be in the NBA?” said Hill, who is in Tucson this week to run his basketball camp at Pueblo High School. “It was definitely a little draining. But I stuck with it.”
It was a familiar feeling for Hill, whose pro future similarly was in doubt entering the 2013 NBA Draft. He left Arizona an All-Pac-12 pick as a senior, but one with the “tweener” status of being too small to be a power forward and without the high-level perimeter skills required of a small forward.
He was projected to go in the second round, with no guarantee of making an NBA roster — until the Pacers surprisingly took him with the 23rd pick of the first round, giving him $2.5 million guaranteed for his first two seasons and picking up a $1.36 million option in 2015-16.
This time, the surprise was even bigger.
Hill caught fire at precisely the right time, at the end of the regular season and during a seven-game first-round playoff series with Toronto. His playing time nearly doubled to 28.3 minutes per game, while he averaged 7.7 points and 4.0 rebounds against the Raptors and continued to play well defensively.
Earlier this month, the New Orleans Pelicans offered him a four-year contract worth $50 million plus incentives. His $12.5 million annual average is five times the amount that the Pacers didn’t want to pay him next season.
It looked like the best possible scenario. Not only was he assured of being in the league, but also in a prominent role with a life-altering raise.
But Hill said the massive turnaround in fortune wasn’t a big surprise, especially not after April.
“Once I started playing, I knew the sky was the limit for me,” Hill said. “I’m finishing playoff games, Game 7. And I’m playing next to guys who’ve been in the league six, nine years. … It was just going down and knocking down shots. I knew that opportunity was awaiting me.”
Hill said his confidence took off in April, especially after he made 7 of 11 3-pointers against Milwaukee in Indiana’s regular-season finale. He then hit 11 of 19 threes over the seven playoff games, a 57.9 percent rate that helped boost his image as more than a defensive specialist.
“I took that confidence into the playoffs, just kept it going,” Hill said.
At the same time, the NBA’s salary cap was expected to make a jump from $70 to $94 million, making this summer an especially good one to be a free agent.
The Pelicans were ready with the checkbook. Back in 2013, New Orleans general manager Dell Demps had hinted something like this could happen.
“When I was doing my NBA draft stuff I talked to Dell and he was like, ‘Just because you get picked by a team doesn’t mean that’s (forever) the situation. There’s gonna be free agency, there’s gonna be trades and I have guys I’m looking at,’ “ Hill said. “It just worked.”
Hill will likely start at small forward but could play the power forward when star Anthony Davis is at center. Hill says he’ll play wherever he’s asked, and said he’s excited to be an integral part of a team for a change.
Hill had his biggest moments with the Pacers when Paul George was injured in 2014-15. With the Pelicans, he will be expected to always be a key.
The money says so. Fifty million means pressure, but the kind that Hill is embracing.
“I’m hungry,” Hill said. “I mean, all this financial stuff is cool but I just look at it as I have a bigger responsibility for this team. I’m so excited. I’ll get to know the team and be part of something. The sky’s the limit for me. I’m just gonna put work into it.”
Hill says he has already picked out a residence in New Orleans but won’t move in until August. Until then, Hill — a Los Angeles native — is spending most of his offseason at the P3 training facility in Santa Barbara, California.
Hill stopped by his other “hometown” this week, heading to UA to work out and greet the coaches and spending three afternoons putting on his camp. Organized with the help of former UA coach and player Joseph Blair’s charity foundation, the tuition-free camp is hosting about 80 kids this week.
“This is something I love doing with J.B.,” Hill said. “It’s a fun atmosphere and it’s fun to see the kids year to year.”
Hill made that clear to Blair last season, when both were at Stanford to watch the Wildcats’ Jan. 21 game with the Cardinal. The Pacers took on Golden State the next evening and the D-League Rio Grande Valley (Texas) Vipers — for which Blair is an assistant coach — took on nearby Santa Cruz.
“The first thing he said was, ‘Hey, we gotta work on the camp this year,’” Blair said. “I say this to everybody: He’s from L.A., plays in Indiana and New Orleans — but his camp is in Tucson. That shows you his priority.”
