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You figure Pistons general manager Joe Dumars has this one tucked away in his back pocket: Grant Hill's return to where he started, this time as a valuable reserve for a championship team in 2007-08.

"I've thought about that," admitted Hill, who expected to be in Chicago, albeit not playing, Tuesday when the Orlando Magic meets the Bulls. "I'm human. I want to win. When you play, you want to be a part of a winning team. But my hope is to try to turn that around and have that here (with Orlando). Ideally, that would be the highlight of my career."

Oh, but wouldn't that be one heck of a story: Hill's returning to Detroit, where he started and was on the way to being one of the game's greatest players, to help the Pistons retool for another championship run and the continuation of a modern sports dynasty.

"San Antonio, Detroit, Miami maybe," Hill mused in a conversation last week, "teams that realistically have a chance to win it all. Everyone is not that fortunate. Maybe the opportunity will be there in two years, maybe not. But I don't look down the road after all this. Every day is a challenge and an obstacle and hurdle to get through. Tomorrow is not promised. If I don't get back to a championship, I'm not going to feel my life is incomplete. It's fun, but I don't need that for validation."

Hill, 33, is not playing again after surgery. How many times have we read that? Well, six, actually. That was the last one, said Hill, who is now out after complications from sports hernia surgery in October. Hill played in 21 games this season, averaging 15.1 points after his wonderful comeback to All-Star level last season when he averaged 19.7 points.

There may never have been a luckier unlucky man in sports. Hill is smart and talented, a favorite of media and fans, one of the best people the NBA has ever known. And good. By his final season in Detroit in 2000, he was averaging 25.8 points per game. He already had played for two NCAA champions, an Olympic gold medal winner and was all-NBA five straight times.

But then came five ankle surgeries, an almost fatal staph infection and nearly two full seasons missed and most of two others. Hill calls it six years of health and six years of cracked mirrors. His wife, popular singer Tamia, contracted multiple sclerosis. Hill returned, then came the abdominal problems. It seems Orlando has moved on with a youth movement after dealing Tracy McGrady and then Steve Francis. There have been inside suggestions of perhaps a buyout of Hill's final contract season in 2006-07.

And yet it's difficult to find anyone more upbeat about life and the NBA than Hill.

"With all that has happened to us, it makes you understand what is important," he said. "Maybe I missed out on some really good years and things haven't always worked out the way I would have liked. But it's not life and death. You learn more in tough times, like a team learns more when it goes through difficult times.

"For me, my legacy is my daughter and when I'm old with all the other has-beens and whether I have the rings or not, the accomplishments are in the family relationships. I didn't get into this to put together a resume or a legacy or think about the Hall of Fame. I've done this because I love playing and still love playing. If my health permits, I'm going to keep playing."

Hill calls this episode of his medical drama the most difficult. He said he was feeling better in the fall than at any time in his stay in Orlando. He has insisted on staying with the team when not visiting doctors and is looking forward to an off-season rehabilitation.

"Maybe this was meant to happen," Hill said somewhat philosophically. "It's like I'm constantly fighting back, but I haven't really stopped to ask why. I feel when I'm healthy I still have the talent to go out and compete. It's a matter of just trying to get it right. Whether it's with a 25- or 30-win team or at a championship level, I want to go out and respect the game and play the way you're supposed to play. For the minimum, whatever. I'm sure my agent wouldn't want to hear that. I understand when it's over, there's no coming back. When that day comes, I want to look back and say I gave everything and if it's not meant to be, at least I tried.

"Sometimes I get out an old tape and put it on and it's like, `Man, I'm looking at the movement, the numbers.' It makes me feel good, but on the other hand it is kind of depressing. I was a pretty good player and I still think if I'm healthy I can play. There's got to be a reward for all this. Maybe it was last year. But hopefully it's still out there for me."

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