Utah Jazz: Anyone Calling George Hill Soft Needs to Stop It

After George Hill underwent yet another stroke of bad luck with injuries in the Utah Jazz’s game on Saturday, some fans are making a big mistake by calling him soft.

Social media can be a funny thing. It’s a great place to share opinions, get news, keep tabs on important things in our lives and follow many other wonderful things. Particularly for sports the likes of Facebook and Twitter can be a great place for fans to exchange thoughts and share ideas and perhaps even engage in a little bit of friendly squabbling.

Unfortunately, it’s also a place where ill-informed “fans” spew nothing but negativity and contempt, even for the team they supposedly love.

And last night after George Hill took a vicious elbow to the face from the Phoenix Sun’s Alex Len that instantly sent him back to the locker room, these types came out in droves, many of them calling Hill “soft” or criticizing his inability to stay healthy or any number of other negative things as if Hill is purposely getting injured or is too weak to overcome minor woes.

For the sake of not embarrassing anyone, I won’t include any of those tweets down below, but if you’d like to see for yourself, they’re not hard to find. Instead I’ll just include one of my own from last night. Because, as those criticizing George Hill seem to think, it was clearly very reckless of him to purposely slam his face full force into Alex Len’s elbow. What was he thinking? (That was all sarcasm if you didn’t pick up on that.)

These criticisms of George Hill have been going on for some time. For a while I just sat back and grimaced at people’s insults, but this one has set me over the edge.

Related Story: Utah Jazz: Fans Need to Chillax on Player Injuries

Yes, Hill missed eight games with a sprained thumb then shortly after that missed 13 games with a sprained toe and in both instances the Jazz were cautious to not rush him back to risk further injury. And while many fans were quick to say Hill was missing games because of a mere “stubbed toe” this is absolutely not the case.

Missing extended time for a sprained toe is not rare at all, as several other Jazz writers pointed out on social media, particularly in comparing Hill’s instance with the injury of Devin Harris.

Harris missed the first 16 games of the season with his sprained toe and reportedly began playing once he was out of the boot and the toe was pain-free. George Hill admitted in his post-game interview on Thursday to playing through some soreness even though he had returned, so don’t go saying he’s soft.

A lot of the decision behind a player sitting out has to do with the medical staff advising them on what to do to preserve their long-term health and isn’t merely a player “wussing out” and requesting not to play as some fans seem to think.

I think George Hill described the situation best when he said:

"“I know a lot of people have been giving me a lot of stuff about the toe. I’m a competitor. If I was healthy enough to go out there, I would be out there.”"

And in his game back against the Sixers, Hill looked impressive in every way, logging 21 points on 80 percent shooting. It was great to see him back and healthy.

Yet while I suppose I can somewhat understand the criticisms of the missed time for the thumb and the toe (though I don’t agree with them) the insults over this latest setback have me baffled.

Below is a video of exactly what happened to Hill on Saturday night. And this one doesn’t really do it justice, the close-up shot showed it a lot better (if anyone can find a link to it please post it in the comments below).

That was one heck of a shot to the face. It was later reported that his tooth went through his lip and he would need 18 stitches on his lip. Let me reiterate, 18 STITCHES! I’m going to have to agree with the following tweets below:

And on top of that, after taking that kind of shot to the head, not surprisingly George Hill was exhibiting concussion-like symptoms and had to be evaluated for such. According to the NBA’s Concussion Policy, Hill has to be out until he is symptom free.

Can someone accusing him of being soft please explain to me how this latest issue is his fault? Explain to me how he deserves any blame for this or how he isn’t justified in missing the rest of Saturday’s game? Given the fact that he needed 18 stitches and the NBA essentially required him to sit out due to his concussion-like symptoms, I just don’t see anyone providing me with a legitimate answer.

Finally, coming from someone who has followed George Hill for a very long time (I’m assuming many of those criticizing him never heard of him until he joined the Jazz), he has been a very durable player throughout his career.

In his eight seasons prior to this year, he has appeared in over 74 games or more in six of those eight seasons. He played through soreness and pain on various occasions throughout his Pacers career and always showed a determination to be on the floor whenever possible.

While dealing with a knee injury and various other setbacks in 2014-15, he managed to push past them to put up a then career-high in both points and assists. Hill has proven himself to be tough, gutsy and durable throughout his time in the NBA and anyone who says otherwise simply isn’t paying attention.

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So particularly with this latest setback that was entirely out of his control and in no way his fault, anyone criticizing or calling Hill soft really just needs to stop. The concussion-like symptoms shouldn’t keep him out of action for very long and every time he’s been on the court he has worked wonders for this team.

There’s no denying that the Jazz have been a better team with Hill and while this has been an unbelievably unlucky year for him, he has been a godsend to a team that was in desperate need of point guard production.

And he deserves much better from his own fan base than to be called names like soft or weak, when everything he has shown on the court has been the exact opposite.

Get well soon, George Hill, and while it was a short return, we’re all looking forward to it being just a short absence and having you back in action again soon.

All stats courtesy of NBA.com