NBA Inside Stuff to return with Grant Hill as co-host

NEW YORK (AP) -- Recently finished as an NBA player, Grant Hill will help restart NBA Inside Stuff.

The basketball series is returning to TV, with Hill serving as a co-host.

The program, consisting of highlights and features about players and teams, will debut on NBA TV on Nov. 2 and air weekly throughout the season.

It originally ran from 1990-2005. The 40-year-old Hill, who made multiple appearances as a player, said the idea of "taking what was very, very successful and redoing it years later was very exciting.''

"You have an opportunity to have some fun, highlight the individuals, their stories, have access to a lot of these great players,'' Hill said in a phone interview. "Hopefully the audience will enjoy it, too.''

The seven-time All-Star retired after spending last season, his 19th in the NBA, with the Los Angeles Clippers. He will also do some studio work for NBA TV and TNT.

Kristen Ledlow, co-host of an Atlanta sports radio show, will join Hill on NBA Inside Stuff.

The program will include updated versions of "Jam Session'' and "Rewind,'' segments that were part of it when Ahmad Rashad hosted with the likes of Julie Moran, Willow Bay and Summer Sanders. There will also be some new features.

Hill said he and other players watched the original program, and he hopes today's players will follow the new one.

"Certainly it was talked about in the locker room and it was quite the honor to be on it,'' he said, "and certainly I'm assuming that a lot of today's current players watched it when they were young and up-and-coming ballplayers themselves.''

There will be 26 episodes, along with several special editions airing at select times during the year.

Hill, well-respected throughout the league, said he had a few TV opportunities since retirement but liked this one. His appearances as a player included segments where he sang, visited a barbershop, and played 1-on-1 with Rashad, and he said the show was a way fans could learn about players in the pre-Internet era.

"It took you in and sort of brought you in the real side, the human side, the fun side, the part that maybe the public doesn't always get a chance to see, and that's what was certainly great and wonderful about that show,'' Hill said.

"Now fast forward to present day, things are different. With social media, athletes can market and brand themselves a little easier than they could 20 years ago. I think we still have a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to once again take the audience in and (show) something close and personal to these great athletes: how they live, how they think, how they train, how they relax. So it should be fun.''