His agent, Lon Babby, said on Friday that Hill decided to remain in Phoenix rather than sign with the Boston Celtics or New York Knicks.

Babby said during a conference call that the deal is for two years, the second at Hill’s option, and he will be paid $3 million in the first year. Hill has played the last two years for the Suns and averaged 12 points in 2008-09 while playing in all 82 games for the first time in his 14-year career.

“Hey man, you’re playing great!”

And before Hill can smile or even respond, the caveat appears.

“I had your shoes when I was in seventh grade.” Or: “I didn’t know you had gray hair!”

“I don’t know if it’s an insult or if they’re being genuine,” Hill said. “But I know what I’m thinking when I hear that stuff: I’m going to beat them downcourt every time.”

Look hard enough, and you can find some great stories inside this turbulent basketball season. Hill is one of them. He will turn 37 in October. He was the team’s best defensive player during the Terry Porter train wreck, often guarding players 10-15 years younger.

“The perception when Grant Hill signed with the Suns was, ‘Can he keep up?’ ” Hill said.

Keep up? For the first 50 games of the 2008-09, he was one of the few Suns who actually were playing hard, running fast, trying to make it all work. Behind the scenes, he was the guy trying to get Porter to loosen the reins.

Now that the last gasp of an era has begun, Hill will have another platform on which to shine. His playing time had diminished under Porter, down almost three minutes a game. Hill is best in the open court, when the game becomes a sprint. The return to a “breakneck” style can only help. So will his relationship with new head man Alvin Gentry.

Hill was with the Pistons in 1998 when Gentry took over as interim coach for the fired Doug Collins. They’ve done this dance before.

“I’ve known Alvin my entire professional career,” Hill said. “He recruited me when he was at Kansas (as an assistant under Larry Brown). And he’s partly responsible for me being here in Phoniex, with the recruiting he did.”

When this season is over, Hill will have given the Suns two excellent years for less than $2 million annually. That’s a steal. After Wednesday’s game against the Clippers, he has played in 53 consecutive games; he and Amaré Stoudemire are the only Suns to play in every game this season.

Don’t look now, but who would have thought the brittle Hill would ever be an ironman?

“I think I played in 50 consecutive games during the lockout season in 1988-89, so I’m kind of scared to even talk about it,” Hill said. “But I’m proud. I had a period when I didn’t know whether I would ever play again, and I had to get through those years where you begin to doubt yourself. To get back has taken a lot of hard work. I’ve put my time in.”

Hill is the former Duke Blue Devil whose career is best symbolized by a blue cross. He’s had umpteen ankle surgeries, a sports hernia and a staph infection that nearly cost him his life. Last year, he played in 70 games for the first time in ages. He also had an emergency appendectomy in January 2008, which led to a recurring groin injury that ruined his playoffs. Alas, this whole mess on Planet Orange might never have occurred if Grant Hill had been healthy and ready for the Spurs, and here’s a telling anecdote:

Hill left US Airways Center on Tuesday with two Team USA jerseys he had signed at the 2000 NBA All-Star Game in Oakland. Hill was scheduled to play in the 2000 Olympics later that year and had chosen No. 15 because that’s the number Magic Johnson wore in Barcelona in 1992.

Those jerseys were supposed to be coveted memorabilia. They were returned to Hill over the weekend, when the All-Star Game came to Phoenix.

Now they are a reminder of what could have been.

But Hill is not a man consumed with regret. He’s all class and grace. Last season he won the NBA’s Joe Dumars Trophy for outstanding sportsmanship. When it comes to all-time great guys, few cities can match our trio of Hill, Kurt Warner and Shane Doan.

“There have been a lot of good times and bad times over the past year and a half, but at least I’m living it,” Hill said. “A lot of guys who came in with me would love to be in the position I’m in. I may have a different attitude and approach to things, but I understand it’s a privilege to do what we do. And I’ve been fortunate enough to have a second chance.”

These Suns have a second chance, too. Hopefully there’s a happy ending for everyone.

Ask anyone around Grant Hill — coaches, trainers, even Suns general manager Steve Kerr — and they look at the sunny side of last Wednesday’s appendectomy, which will keep him out of action for at least two weeks.

Hill isn’t so sure. After missing so much basketball to injuries over the past seven years, every game is a gift he wants to embrace. So much so that there were nights during the first 34 games this season when he worked through pains that would have kept him out in the past in hope of playing a full season for the first time in a decade (he played 81 for the 1997-98 Pistons).

Hill said he plans to miss only “six or seven games,” meaning he could return next week during the Suns’ fourgame Eastern road trip that starts Jan. 22 in Milwaukee.

“If it wasn’t for this training staff, I don’t know if I would have made it (to this point) without missing a few games,” said Hill, who took his wife, Tamia, to lunch the day after his 45-minute surgery and was back watching practice Friday.

“There were times in the morning (of game day) when you leave the shoot thinking, ‘There’s no way I can play tonight.’ But I’d get in early, and (trainers Aaron Nelson and Erik Phillips) do their stuff, you know like Mr. Miyagi (the mystic healer from “The Karate Kid”) and they got me ready.

“So maybe, in the long run, there is some benefit. That’s what Kerr keeps telling me. It’s a long season, and it will be even longer when you consider what we’re trying to do. I haven’t played this much or this long in a while … so maybe it’s not the worst-case scenario.”

Hill wasn’t thinking that last Tuesday night, when he started getting severe muscle cramps. “I thought I’d eaten some bad shellfish or something, but I wasn’t getting the other classic symptoms of (food poisoning),” he said. “I spent a lot of time in the bathroom, but nothing was happening, you know? Then it started to hurt on one side more, and then it hurt to walk or lift my leg … and when I got to practice Wednesday morning, the guys knew I needed to go get checked out.”

Hill was given a picture of his appendix after the surgery. “I was told, usually, it’s 2 to 3 centimeters (in diameter) and mine was 8 to 9. So that’s pretty inflamed,” he said.

Hill nearly skipped all the trouble he’s having now about a decade ago. A week after completing a summer promotion tour in Mexico during the summer of 1998, Hill felt pain in the same place and ran a high fever. He checked into the Duke University Hospital — a teaching hospital — for overnight observation.

“They had interns checking me all night and taking readings and at 6 a.m., a nurse comes in and starts bathing me, saying they were going to do exploratory surgery because they felt my appendix might need to come out,” he said. “I called some doctors I knew at Duke and they came in and calmed everyone down.

“It turned out I just had a bad case of ‘Montezuma’s Revenge.’ But looking back, maybe I should have gone ahead and taken it out. I wouldn’t have this problem now.”

Her husband was slated to compact his tall frame at a cafeteria table for the chicken fajita lunch with their older daughter’s kindergarten class.

But at this point, the couple convened cozily on the couch – 5-year-old Myla was at school – along with resting 4-month-old Lael and Sweetie, the family’s Maltese. The husband and wife talked about life, love, laughs and lessons when she noticed that they both were wearing jeans with silver shirts.
“I got dressed before you,” she said.

“I wore this to take Myla to school,” he retorted in the first of a few playful debates, such as how she saw his eyes slightly open – though he didn’t offer to get up – when Lael cried in the middle of the night.

More glamorous days often are the norm for the Valley’s newest celebrity couple, as Grant Hill is enjoying a career renaissance with the Suns and Tamia maintains her career as a Grammy-nominated songstress with four albums.

The real glamour is in their everyday romance. It is a bond forged out of a 1996 blind date arranged by Anita Baker. It is a bond strengthened by helping each other through scares and recoveries caused by his life-threatening staph infection after one of five ankle surgeries and her multiple sclerosis diagnosis.

They put the “power” in power couple. Grant took charge of his basketball career, passing on residential roots, better money and deeper bonds to join the Suns for what has proved to be the right situation. Tamia took charge of her music career, starting her own label, Plus 1 Music Group, and working more than ever to run it.

Less than six months ago, Grant said, “Maybe we should move,” to Tamia after they had bought their “forever” home in Orlando, where he played for the Magic from 2000 to 2007. The Hills have barely stopped moving since then. He signed with the Suns in July and bought their Paradise Valley home with Tamia’s approval by video because she carried Lael until August.

“The one thing all of this – the surgeries, moving, everything – has really taught us is to be open to change,” Tamia said, with Grant adding, “I’ve noticed people move here and don’t move back.”

A perfect start

Their bliss began with a leap of faith. Tamia was merely a fan of Baker when the multi-platinum star approached her at the Soul Train Music Awards and blurted, “I have the perfect guy for you.”

Baker told her about Grant, who had met Baker at a Pistons game and had begun playing tennis with Baker’s husband.

Tamia had grown up in Detroit’s neighboring city, Windsor, Ontario, but lived in California at the time. She did not meet Grant for another six months, when Tamia ran into Grant’s friends at a Los Angeles talent show.

“Anita put him in my conscience,” Tamia said, as Grant gave Baker credit for lending him credibility.

“It was love at first sight,” Grant said, but not before embellishing that Tamia saw his billboard in Detroit and wanted to meet him, to which Tamia said, “Oh, I don’t think so. You wish I did.”

The Hills married in Michigan in July 1999, a year before his sign-and-trade move for a $93 million deal with Orlando.

“Anita has since told me to stop telling that story,” Tamia said. “All her friends call up and say, ‘What about me? Do you have any more of those?’ ”

Tamia sang at their wedding, but she can offer no help or hope for Grant’s voice, which Myla mocks on the morning car rides to school.

“I try to help him, but it’s not there,” Tamia said.

“If she was really good, she’d be able to help me,” Grant countered. “I could help her with her basketball game.”

But when he lost his ability to play, she could only help him through it. A series of left-ankle surgeries stemmed from playing on an injured ankle in the 2000 playoffs with Detroit. A March 2003 operation to realign his left heel led to a staph infection, 104-degree fever and convulsions a week later that threatened his life.

He recovered. Five months later, Tamia was diagnosed with MS.

“It’s almost the same in mind,” Tamia said. “You get the sudden news, and then there’s a road you have to take to deal with it and get yourself better. I think you are always concerned for someone other than yourself. When you love someone and see them going through something, you want to fight for them – sometimes, more than yourself.”

It infuriated her to hear the perceptions and criticisms that came Hill’s way in Orlando, where he missed 374 of a possible 574 games in seven seasons with the Magic.

She saw him sitting in ice buckets in the backyard, swimming like he was trying to cross the ocean and turning family vacations into rehabilitations. Even a close confidant made a veiled suggestion that Hill see a psychologist.

Simultaneous battles

“A change was needed, because all of that emotion was there in Orlando,” said Hill, who was booed unmercifully and lambasted as a greedy traitor in his return to Orlando last month with the Suns. “It made me feel like I was responsible. I was wrong. I was the problem. That was always the undertone. You’ve got your employer looking at you like ‘Are you going to quit?’ and even asking you at various times to go ahead and retire.”

But how could he stop fighting when he saw his wife take on MS so strongly and not miss a beat in her career? Her MS is “relapsing remising,” and remains mysterious to them but has caused no physical trouble other than occasional fatigue.

“With mine, there are scars and crutches and reminders of it,” Grant said. “With her, because she’s so busy and active, I forget about it. She doesn’t complain about it.”

In fact, there are times that Tamia wishes she had not announced the diagnosis two years ago.

“I’m sick of being defined by it,” she said. “I don’t want to be a lifelong MS-er. I’ve done so much more in my career and in my life, that to be defined by three words – she has MS – irritates me sometimes. I have days where I’m glad I did when I meet people my age on the road who have MS as well. I take pride that they can see someone staying positive and healthy.”

Grant’s return sends an equally uplifting message. Several NBA veterans talk about how easy and rational it would have been for Grant to walk away. He had the money. He had attempted numerous comebacks. He had screws and zipper scars in an ankle that he would need to play with his daughters.

Retirement was one of this summer’s options, but he chose Phoenix over Detroit. He has a two-year, $3.8 million contract with a second-year player option. No front office can claim a deal with more bang for the buck. Hill, 35, is averaging 16.0 points on 50 percent shooting with 4.6 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game.

“The idea of picking up and going elsewhere was like, ‘Well, is it really worth it?’ ” he said. “But it has been, and not just basketball.”

Tamia raves about how inclusive the organization has been for families, joining the team for camp and road trips and how players can visit the arena’s kids room before, during and after games.

Hill is a doting dad to the point that Myla cried when she saw a pool safety commercial showing Dad playing with other kids and when he tossed T-shirts at the Tucson scrimmage to other kids. But Hill, the son of former NFL running back Calvin Hill, cringes about tales of being a superdad because he takes care of his kids. Like Chris Rock said, “You’re supposed to.”

He drives Myla to school at 7 a.m. but also tries to sleep through Lael’s cries at 3 a.m.

“I’m tired,” said Grant, whom Tamia finds taking midday naps near her in-house office. “I play 35 minutes a night. I need my rest.”

Grant had never played with a true point guard until he was paired with Suns teammate Steve Nash this season. Even though Nash might help Hill complete a career resume that includes a college title, Olympic gold medal, All-Star Games, commercials and signature shoes, Nash is not even the Canadian whom Hill appreciates most.

Tamia is his MVP.

Together, the Hills survive and thrive.