I posted this at a friend's baseball site, so excuse the "well, duh" basketball aspects of it: Wallace was/is upset because Flip Saunders moved away from a defensive emphasis in practice, which is understandable on most teams, but not the Pistons. Detroit had the most efficient offense in the NBA last year for the first 40-45 games. Better than Phoenix, better than Miami, better than Dallas. Better than Charlotte, even. Their defense suffered, going from #2 in defensive efficiency to a low of 15th around January/Feb. (working off memory here), but it quickly improved and finished fifth in the NBA last season in overall efficiency (the Bulls were 6th, the Spurs 1st). While this happened, they dipped a bit in offense, finishing 3rd in averaging 112.2 points per hundred possessions by the end of the year. Dallas was 2nd with 113.2, PHX 1st with 113.9. The trade that sent Carlos Arroyo to Orlando in February (made to clear up cap space to sign Ben Wallace) hurt them offensively, as they were forced to give more minutes to Lindsey Hunter, one of the worst offensive guards in basketball. Now that you've read the boring crap, here's my point: through all of this, the Pistons were winning. They were on pace to win 70 games for the first 45-50 games, they ran away with the Eastern Conference and would have had home court advantage in the Finals had they not lost to the Heat in six games. The more Big Ben b****ed, the more they lost. They lost four of seven to close out the season after that Wallace b****fest in Orlando (while Darko shined), they barely beat a Cleveland team (down 2-3, won in seven) that was a lot crappier than people think, and should have beaten Miami. Wallace f@#$ed their season, not Flip Saunders. Flip Saunders was brought in to make the Pistons, a team full of sound basketball minds who knew how to pass and move without the ball, into a real two-way team. Because the defense would hold serve by habit, his giant playbook could open things up and allow them to win in a number of ways. For a while, it worked, until Ben perceived a lack of aggression on Flip's part and the rest of the team needlessly followed suit, and Saunders lost the team. A team on pace to win 70. I'm happy Wallace is on the Bulls, make no mistake, but I have been long been a follower of Saunders' offense and know exactly why Dumars hired him instead of anyone else. Saunders can win offensive with teams that don't run -- the Pistons were 29th out of 30 teams last year in possessions per game (the indicator of how much a team runs), after being 30th the year before with Larry Brown in charge. That team should have won 67 games and shouldn't have lost more than three times in the Eastern Conference Playoffs. Because Big Ben had the temerity to b**** on a team that won 37 of its first 42 games, they fell apart. How anyone could look at a 37 and 5 team and deduce that something is going wrong is beyond me, but that didn't stop Wallace. Also, I have to add, the trumped-up crap about how Detroit improved under Larry Brown because he let Ben Wallace shoot more is as big a load of crap as you'll find. This guy, a center, is shooting 42 and 45 percent from the floor for your team, he makes less than half his free throws, and you want to let him shoot MORE? What the hell? He averaged nine shots per game in his two seasons under Brown, up from six per game in the two seasons prior, and you're telling me that three shots per game more from this abysmal offensive player is somehow helping your team? Those three shots weren't better served by being attempted by Billups/Hamilton/Prince/Rasheed? There's a reason the Pistons were 18th and 16th in offense during Brown's two years, and third under Flip Saunders (Big Ben averaged 5.7 field goal attempts per game last year).
You reward him by getting him the ball if he's in a position to do something. Running plays for him is a waste of a possesion and nullifies a block shot or whatever positive contribution he had done previously. There's no point in having Wallace on the floor if he wants to shoot the ball 10-15 times a game, thus cancelling out his defensive contributions. Using this logic, let's run plays for Alston to post up if he made a nice steal on the previous possession. Just because you do something well on one end of the floor doesn't give you liberty to do whatever you want on the other. That is the difference between a role player and an egomaniac. Wallace is a role player who has become an egomaniac.
All the Pistons players should feel ashamed of themselves. LB got them over the hump, and yes he did screw them over by flirting with other jobs during the finals, but they have weak characters. They talked bad about LB and praised Saunders for his "laid back" open minded offensive attitute while they were winning, but as soon as they faced adversity in the playoffs they turned on Saunders and blamed him for everything. That is really weak. Get some character.
"He's a coach, and I'm a player, and that's as far as it went. If you say your door is always open, and we can always talk about things, and you'll be willing to listen, and when I come to him and talk about something that's bothering me that I think is hurting the team, if you don't do anything to change it, then that's the last time I need to talk to you." Ohh jeeeezzzzz...
It's normal. Bunch of hard-working guys are willing to do anything a tough coach tells them to do, before they win anything. With the ring, nomination of 4 all-star players, and some easy wins, all of a sudden, so-called blue collar hard-working guys want to do fancy stuff, and complain about lacking of idolization etc. Once they get arrogant and forget what made them successful - effort + chemistry over super talent, they are finished. It was disgusting to watch Big Ben playing in the series against Cleveland and Miami. It's funny that his understanding of conversation is, if I complain, you don't do what I ask, we are done talking. All NBA first team, what a joke.
I love the guy, but he isn't an offensive threat...There has to be a balance and I don't think he quite understood that...However, I think he'll fit in nicely in Chicago...
Sadly that includes Tmac. If he can get past the mental barrier, he will be Jordan-like. As for Big Ben, he should shut up and practice layups. He is lucky he is playing against scrubs at his position. Back in the good ol days, half of the NBA's centers would have stolen his lunch money. If he is making that much for blocks and rebounds, Hakeem should have made 4 times his salary. Hakeem was better than him in blocked shots, rebounds, steals, and actually played OFFENSE. Hell he could do everything Big Ben could, do it twice as good, and then give you a lousy 25ppg on offense while being the chief focus on offense. And he had a Nigerian accent to boot and gave lectures to refs! Its a sad state of affairs for the league in terms of center play when one of the top centers cannot put the ball in the ocean even if you put him on a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic.
The sad part is that even his defense was overrated last year. Yao and Shaq both held their opponents at their position over the season to lower PERs (Shaq 12.0, Yao 12.5, Ben 14.5) than Ben did, and neither Yao nor Shaq(now) are regarded as dominating defenders in the class of Ben. I think Chicago just got a bad deal all the way around. At least they had the sense to make the deal frontloaded so they aren't paying Wallace $18 million when he's 36.
They might have won that series if he could consistently make a point blank layup. Basketball players are all such whiners, well except Yao Ming.
