By INSIDEHOOPS.COM

Grant Hill's first season with the Magic is over. Hill only managed to play 4 games before realizing that his ankle was still a mess and more healing needed to occur.

This is irrelevant, but fans always seem to love hearing this type of stuff so here you go: if you divide up Hill's salary, he was paid $2.4 million per game he played, and about $174,500 per point he scored.

We'll now pause 10 seconds so you can all react to the money.

And now we're back.

Unfortunately, before healing can begin, doctors will operate on Hill's left ankle a second time. It's expected to take 6 to 8 months for him to be ready to play again.

What's scary is that doctors can't really explain why Hill hasn't healed correctly. (Squeamish people should now skip to the next paragraph.) He's now got 5 pins and 1 metal plate in his ankle, and may need to graft part of his pelvis bone onto his ankle in the next round of surgery.

It's been reported that 95% of those who have the surgery Hill had recover in the expected timetable with no complications. So it's unfortunate that Grant fell into that unlucky 5%.

There are two other NBA players who had similar surgery to Grant's, and they are Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Chris Dudley. Ilgauskas has had foot troubles forever now, and Dudley missed almost the entire season the year he had the surgery but he fully recovered and came back to provide little of anything, just as he had before. However, note that their injuries were similar but not - we repeat - not the same thing.

Anyway, so again, Hill should be fine after this surgery. Assuming he doesn't fall into some tiny, ill-fated percentage again.

If this thing doesn't fully heal, perhaps Grant Hill winds up playing worse than Scottie Pippen is this season. Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. But think of how important Hill's left ankle is to him. Picture those jab steps with nothing behind them. Not good.

So now, Magic fans can forget about battling the Lakers in the finals. They have to figure out who other than McGrady can step it up this year. Darrell Armstrong has been overworked and isn't playing as well as he did last year. Orlando isn't even winning half their games (they're 4 games below .500). All the team can do is play out the season and see about finding a decent backup point guard and a power forward that can do what Ben Wallace used to do before next season, and hope that a bad ankle doesn't put Grant over the Hill.

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