Ranking the 13 Worst Cavaliers starters of the LeBron James return era

Worst Starter No. 6 – George Hill

George Hill is the king of just missing out on NBA championships. A former first-round pick of the San Antonio Spurs, he joined the team 12 months after they won the 2007 title over the Cleveland Cavaliers. He played three seasons with the Spurs before he was traded for Kawhi Leonard, missing the Spurs’ next title. Later in his career, he would play for the Milwaukee Bucks in 2020 and in 2022, missing their title in 2021.

Hill did the same with the Cleveland Cavaliers in between, joining the team a full season after they won the 2016 title. At that point, the steady point guard was no longer able to drive his own scoring with any consistency, but he was installed as the starting point guard because of a paucity of other options.

The fit overall was fine, as Hill had honed his ability to play off of ball-dominant forwards playing with Paul George and Gordon Hayward. The production was another story, as Hill shot just 44.4 percent from the field and 35.1 percent from deep. He didn’t play poorly, necessarily, as much as he didn’t make much of an impact on the game at all.

Box Plus-Minus estimated that he was -1.2 points per 100 possessions worse than a league-average player; that’s both an indictment of Hill, who was unable to excel starting alongside LeBron James, but also of the Cavs — if they had another league-average point guard they would have played him.