FORGET ORLANDO, GRANT HILL WILL ALWAYS BE WELCOME IN PHOENIX — WHERE SUNS SUPPORTERS APPRECIATE HIM

Now that Grant Hill has retired as a player after 18 NBA years, he has the wealth of talents, connections and options to become a businessman, a politician, a broadcast analyst, a full-time father or the often-rumored Phoenix Suns executive. Regardless, Phoenix can always be home. Home is where you are embraced. Despite all the money he made ($93 million) and time he spent (seven years) with Orlando, Hill was ridiculously booed upon every return trip to Orlando for past injuries he would not wish on an enemy and ones he tried to overcome with surgeries, even a life-threatening one, and five 3-inch screws in his left ankle.

Phoenix will always be waiting with an ovation that wraps up Hill with appreciation and affection. Phoenix did not get to see Hill in his playing prime, but Suns fans, staff and media did get to see him at his personal best. He was the consummate professional that put behind his superstar years filled with Sprite and Fila commercials, All-Star Games and Michael Jordan comparisons to reinvent his game and be the ideal teammate and representative. He went from scoring leader to team leader, setting an example for work ethic for teammates and making an evident standard for coaches to accentuate.

After missing 374 of 574 games in Orlando, Hill bonded with the Suns athletic training staff to miss three games over one three-year stretch in Phoenix. Over five bargain-salary seasons with the Suns, Hill played more and scored less. Once hidden in Detroit from tough defensive assignments, Hill became one of the league’s best defenders, many times shutting down players 10 to 15 years younger than him. He used guile and craftiness to slip out on fastbreaks and dedication to become ever-reliable with a midrange jumper. But you still could not sleep on his sneaky old-man athleticism. He threw down dunks and was not to be dunked on. Right, Jerryd Bayless?

Hill was a pleasure to be around, except for all the Duke references, and a dream for media as a stand-up guy with an amiable, available way. He grew up privileged as the son of a NFL player father and an accomplished executive mother but yearned to earn his way and prove himself by outworking his competition. Hill is the type of guy who ships all his awards to his parents but keeps his father’s old playing-days car to restore it. Hill would chat up the support staff and dine with his daughter at the grade-school cafeteria.

Hill could have chased a championship ring twice, but he chose to re-sign with Phoenix despite initial low-ball offers that offended him. When the third indifferent approach came last year amid Steve Nash’s departure, Hill left for the Clippers to carry out his goal to play at age 40, but his body finally did not cooperate the same and retirement became the evident option.

Now, his wife Tamia and daughters, Myla (11) and Lael (5), are the lucky ones to get him more often until he reinvents his career again.

“I look forward to, when I’m done, allowing her (Tamia) to go out and do more and I can be Bobby Brown,” Hill said two years ago.

The Suns would be a better organization if he chose to do so with them. It remains possible as he and his former agent, Suns president of basketball operations Lon Babby, have begun to thaw a relationship that turned icy since last summer.

If he does not ever work for the Suns, he has a TNT analyst job waiting for him if he chooses that path. Regardless, there is no way he is done with basketball.

Hill has one more basketball stop remaining. After two NCAA championships, an Olympic gold medal, seven All-Star appearances, a third-place finish in 1997 MVP voting and league sportsmanship and citizenship awards, Hill has a 2019 enshrinement appointment with the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Scottsdale Saguaro quarterback Luke Rubenzer, at Ohio State this weekend for an Elite 11 qualifier, got a call at 12:30 in the morning from Trent Dilfer.

The former NFL quarterback and coaching guru told Rubenzer they needed to see him work out one more time to determine whether he is deserving of one of the last remaining golden tickets for The Opening and the Elite 11 finals at Oregon at the end of June.

Rubenzer was greeted in his hotel lobby by Dilfer’s posse, which led him to a field outside the hotel that was lit up by a row of cars’ headlights.

Rubenzer will be joining Scottsdale Desert Mountain’s Kyle Allen as one of the final Elite 11 quarterbacks in the country competing in late June.

It looks like this could be reality TV in the making on ESPN.