Interesting.

The first bolded phrase below might be a new revelation about the Artest incident as far as I know.

http://www.dailyherald.com/sports/story.asp?id=235124


Putting past behind him

By Mike McGraw
Daily Herald Sports Writer

By next month, the infamous brawl between the Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers and several dozen fans at the Palace of Auburn Hills will be two years in the past.

That ordeal began when Bulls center Ben Wallace, then with Detroit, took a flagrant foul from Indiana’s Ron Artest in the waning moments of a game that already had been decided.

Wallace retaliated with an aggressive, two-hand shove to Artest’s chest. The two players were separated, but the real trouble began when a fan tossed a cup that hit Artest. The muscular forward was lying on the scorer’s table at the time and charged into the seats, followed by several teammates.

NBA fans may not realize it, but Wallace and Artest have not played in the same game since. Artest, a former Bulls player, was suspended for the remainder of the 2004-05 season. Last year, Artest split time with the Pacers and Sacramento Kings but did not face the Pistons.

The reunion should finally take place Nov. 3, when Sacramento visits the United Center, though Wallace is not concerned.

“I’m going out there to play basketball,” Wallace said. “I never go on the floor looking for problems, looking for a fight or anything. Those things just all happen. I’m going out to play basketball. As long as we go out and play basketball, do what we’re supposed to do and stay from the foolishness, then it ain’t nothing.”

One obvious question stemming from fight night is why did Wallace get so angry at Artest?

“Because he told me he was going to hit me, and he did it,” Wallace said. “That was just one of those things. It happened in the heat of the battle.”

Any regrets?

“No, I don’t live with regrets,” he said.

One interesting sidebar to the brawl involved Wallace’s older brother David, who was sitting in the stands and got involved in the scrum with Pacers players. As a result, David Wallace faced charges and was banned from attending games at the Palace.

“Now he can come to the United Center,” Wallace said with a laugh. “He had to do a little community service, got that all out of the way. I think it was good for him, good for everybody, that things worked out the way they did.”

The Bulls-Kings game could be interesting, but the most anticipated reunion this season will come when Wallace plays against the Pistons. Detroit visits the United Center on Jan. 6, and the Bulls’ first trip to Auburn Hills is Feb. 25.

After Wallace signed with the Bulls as a free agent in July, Pistons coach Flip Saunders uttered some interesting and slightly bewildering comments.

First, Saunders gushed about how much better off the Pistons will be on offense without Wallace, who always has been a defensive specialist. Detroit signed Chicago native Nazr Mohammed, whose career scoring average is 7.1 points, to replace Wallace.

“The playbook was probably half of what it was because of that situation,” Saunders said. “Now we will be able to have an offense where we can utilize everybody.”

Saunders also seemed to suffer memory loss when he claimed Detroit will have a better chance of beating Miami in the playoffs without Wallace.

“It’s a proven fact that if you want to beat Miami, you have to have a center who can score against (Shaquille O’Neal),” Saunders said. “If you don’t, what happens is Shaq gets to rest so much on defense that he’s that much better on offense. We had to have a better inside presence offensively.”

Saunders must have forgotten that Wallace’s Pistons beat O’Neal twice in the playoffs — in the 2004 Finals against the Lakers and the 2005 Eastern Conference finals after O’Neal was traded to Miami.

“I don’t pay no attention to that garbage,” Wallace said. “We didn’t have an offensive center when we won the championship. How quickly people forget.

“That’s their problem back there. I’m Chicago’s problem now, since I was such a big problem in the middle.”

Flip needs to shut up or get out.

No shit, fuck him. Try winning a conference and you can talk about what it takes to win in this league.

I think these little exchanges really underscore that there was a real problem between Flip/Ben, much more than what was made public.

It really makes me think that Joe's offer to Ben was just a PR move, he probably knew Ben was gone either way.

Flip needs to shut up or get out.
Worst shit talker ever= Flip.

It really makes me think that Joe's offer to Ben was just a PR move, he probably knew Ben was gone either way.
knew too late either way.

Chris McCosky

BAITING BIG BEN

You had to know this would happen. A reporter takes snippets of comments made by Flip Saunders, serves them up to Ben Wallace in Chicago and hopes Ben takes the bait.

Wallace was told how Saunders said the Pistons offense would be better off without Ben at center. Now, Saunders has said that he would be able to use a lot more of his playbook because he has a center who teams can't just foul on purpose to break up a play. Saunders has also said how much the Pistons were going to miss every other aspect of Wallace but his offense. But, that part apparently wasn't repeated back to Ben.

Secondly, Ben was told this Saunders quote -- "It’s a proven fact that if you want to beat Miami, you have to have a center who can score against (Shaquille O’Neal). If you don’t, what happens is Shaq gets to rest so much on defense that he’s that much better on offense."

Aside from the obvious truth of that statement, it should be mentioned that Saunders said the same thing before and during the Pistons series with the Heat last year. It could not have come as a news flash to Ben.

But, whatever. Saunders, for the record, has not taken any shots at Ben. He has been very professional about the whole thing. He gives Ben his due every chance he gets.

Here was Ben's response in the Daily Herald: "I don’t pay no attention to that garbage. We didn’t have an offensive center when we won the championship. How quickly people forget. That’s their problem back there. I’m Chicago’s problem now, since I was such a big problem in the middle."

Ben's right. The Pistons didn't have an offensive center in 2004. But the game has changed since then. Changed a lot. I think that will become obvious in Chicago, too, when Ben finds himself sitting on the bench more than he would like down the stretch of close games. I hope I am wrong about that, but I don't think I will be.

i agree w/ mccosky in that reporters are going to try their best to stir up controversy. that was bound to happen.

You know, as much as I hate Flip, Ben has some doing in this too.

It's Ben's job as the captain of the Pistons to get this team going. Flip got us off to a 37-5 record. Flip's not the best coach, but it was working. Then things go a little awry, and Ben gets upset. Being the captain, he has to try and make things right. Instead he spends his time sulking on the bench. What a fucking pussy. What happened to the team first attitude?

Ben can suck a dick.
Flip can suck a dick.

Make Lindsey Hunter our coach.

Go Pistons!

a whole lotta quotes here. enjoy:


Big Ben's dislike for Flip helped fuel his departure (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/trainingcamp06/columns/story?columnist=sheridan_chris&id=2614363)

DEERFIELD, Ill. -- First and foremost, it was the money that brought Ben Wallace to the Chicago Bulls. They were offering a starting salary of $16 million -- more than $4 million more than what the Detroit Pistons were offering -- and the bottom line, we all know, is that money talks.

But there was another factor, too, one that Wallace had kept pent up until now, that made his decision an easier one.


He did not like coach Flip Saunders, not one bit. And the fury he felt toward his former coach after sitting out the final 12 minutes of Detroit's final playoff game last season stuck with him through June and into July -- a month that began with Bulls general manager John Paxson and coach Scott Skiles ringing his doorbell on the afternoon of the July 1, coming into his home and making a three-hour pitch to Wallace and his then-pregnant wife, Chanda.

A considerable amount of trepidation was rattling around inside Paxson's head that afternoon when he first walked in the door, but the feeling he exited with three hours later was somewhat hopeful. "I didn't know how realistic it was. I think all of us thought it would be very difficult to get Ben out of Detroit, though we saw there might be a crack in the door just from reading stuff," Paxson said.

There had been an episode in Orlando late in the season when Wallace refused to re-enter a game, and then there was Game 6 in Miami and the quotes from Wallace afterward that indicated all was not quite so hunky-dory over on the other side of Lake Michigan.

"The bottom line is we had the money, and we sold him on Scott being a no-nonsense guy who comes to work every day. We didn't have an agenda other than that, but we thought maybe there was a part of Ben that said maybe it's time to change teams one last time and see if I can't do something great somewhere else. We saw there was something [in Detroit] that he wasn't as thrilled about as he had been in the past, but I honestly didn't think we had much of a shot," Paxson told Insider from inside the second-floor office he inherited from predecessor Jerry Krause overlooking the court at the Bulls' suburban practice facility.

What the Bulls did have was a bevy of cap space, enabling them to offer Wallace much, much more than the Pistons were willing to pay. The starting salary of $16 million should end up being the most money Wallace ever makes in an NBA season, as his contract decreases to $15.5 million next season, $14.5 million in 2008-09 and $14 million in '09-10. Still, it all added up to $60 million, which was $8 million higher in total dollars than the Pistons indicated they were willing to go.

In a league in which making money is the bottom line, the decision started to become more and more of a no-brainer for Wallace the more he discussed it -- even though he was the No. 1 fan favorite in Detroit, a player whose name was called last in pregame introductions, a player who embodied the work ethic that the Pistons had always maintained was one of the main keys to their success, a player who might have even had his number retired if he had finished his career in Motown.

"I weighed all the pros and cons. One thing that really made me comfortable about coming here wasn't anything Pax or Scott did, it was that those guys I played with in Detroit, great guys, great teammates and great friends, it was like we were all in there negotiating together," Wallace said. "My agent talked to Pax, then came back and talked to me. And after we finished talking I hung up the phone and called Chauncey, ran the scenario by him, called Rip, Rasheed, Lindsey, Tayshaun, those guys. So it wasn't like I was making the decision on my own. I talked to those guys, and they all told me we would love to be selfish and tell you we need you to come back so we can make this run again, but they said this seems like an ideal situation with a team that reminded them of us when we won the championship. They said, 'It sounds like the best situation for you, and we can't blame you if you take it,'" Wallace said.

So Wallace took it, putting his six years in Detroit -- along with a coach he had no use for -- in his rearview mirror.

He had been stewing over his benching in Game 6 in Miami, and he skipped his exit interview with Saunders back in Auburn Hills, opting instead to speak only with team president Joe Dumars.

"At that point in time, the frustration was still sitting heavy on me, so there wasn't no need for me to have a conversation with Flip at all," Wallace recalled. "I thought the worst thing he can do to a player who's been there and been in the fight with you all season was to put me on that bench and force me to watch that whole fourth quarter and not have an opportunity to get in there and see the action. That was the toughest 12 minutes I ever had to play -- or ever had to watch. It sticks with me, it's still with me."

I interviewed Wallace that night in Miami after Game 6, concluding he was more apt to leave than stay after hearing him say: "Everyone knows where my heart is. It's in my chest." Wallace hinted at how livid he was over being benched for the fourth quarter, but held his tongue for the most part and never ripped Saunders by name.

Fast-forward to this past Wednesday evening following the Bulls' nightcap of two-a-day practices, and Wallace finally decided to open up to ESPN.com.

Did he like playing for Flip?

"No. I just didn't like the way we handled things," Wallace said. "We got away from our bread and butter, and that's on the defensive end. I hear him saying now that I'm gone he can open up his playbook. I laugh at it. Everyone's looking for something, and for him to say that, he's fishing for getting a reaction out of me. It's funny to me, real comical. I never thought you could win when you've got five guys on the floor looking for the ball and no one out there doing the little things. So that's on him. If he feels like that, go ahead."

Wallace mentioned Jim Lynam, Doc Rivers, Rick Carlisle and Larry Brown as the favorite coaches he has played for, going on to say Skiles reminds him of Brown because he does not play favorites and sees himself as a teacher at both ends of the floor.

Saunders did not make the list.

"I have no relationship with him. He's 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 to 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."

That time came early in the season when the Pistons were reeling off wins and beginning to set their sights on making a run at 70 victories, a number they'd eventually fall six wins short of.

"We weren't playing as hard as we could on defense. We had to grind it out when we should have been up and comfortable, giving other guys a chance to get some reps. But for the most part we had to fight. I just told him the way we were playing defense then, we didn't have a whole lot of defensive principles. We were just out there playing on natural ability, and we needed to put some type of system in place we were going to come out every night and use, instead of trying to feel our way through it," Wallace said. "He said: 'OK, I understand what you said.' But he never changed."

"Carlisle was cool. He's one of those coaches who said his door was open and you went to talk to him, if he didn't believe in what you said, he'd tell you and say, 'I'm not going to do it that way, it won't work.' You can't do nothing but respect that," Wallace said. "And coach Brown wasn't afraid to go out there and run a play for you, and if you did well on it he was going to keep coming to you."

Saunders also spoke to Insider, taking issue with Wallace's recollection of their meeting.

"We had opened 8-0 and we were just back after losing in Utah. We talked more about what he was doing offensively," Saunders said. "As far as Game 6, I'm probably as frustrated as him; we weren't scoring, and I was trying to get some offensive firepower."

Saunders did not run many plays for Wallace, and his scoring average sank from 9.7 points in his final season under Brown to 7.2 in his lone season under Saunders. Wallace did pick up his fourth Defensive Player of the Year award, but his rebounding average (11.3) dropped for the third consecutive season, and his blocked shot average (2.21) fell for the fourth straight year. Numbers such as those have caused many to say the Bulls overpaid for a 32-year-old center already on the decline, but while Paxson will allow that the Bulls did overspend (because they had to), he feels the perception that Wallace is in decline will inspire his big free-agent pickup.

Chicago is coming off its second straight first-round ouster in the playoffs, but last season was a throwaway year after the Bulls decided to trade Eddy Curry (and Antonio Davis) at the start of training camp, sacrificing their only low-post scoring threats along with a respected veteran whose leadership capabilities were not replaced. By bringing in Wallace and P.J. Brown, two players whose leadership comes from setting an example through their practice habits and game efforts, some of those missing elements have been replenished.

When the Bulls open the season Halloween night in Miami, Wallace will be back at the same locker where he sat so wounded and angry in June after what turned out to be his final game in a Detroit uniform. But he'll be wearing Bulls colors this time, red and black, and he'll be starting a new chapter in a career that has taken him from being an undrafted nobody to possibly becoming the biggest impact free agent since Steve Nash left Dallas for Phoenix.

And when the final 12 minutes roll around, Wallace hopes Saunders is watching somewhere on TV, taking note that Wallace will be spending this fourth quarter on the floor instead of the bench.

"From here on out, I'm going to remember that 12 minutes on that bench," he said. "I had been there through thick and thin with those guys, and I hated to watch my teammates out there put up a fight and there was nothing I could do to help them. It was like the big brother scenario, seeing someone pick on your little brother or sister and you can't do nothing about it.

"It was a helpless feeling, man. Things were going the way they were going, and there was nothing I could do to change it."

So Wallace decided to change what he could.

Mostly it was about the money. But it was also about Saunders.

And that, folks, is why Wallace is a Bull.

Chris Sheridan covers the NBA for ESPN Insider. To e-mail Chris, click here.

the best part is when Ben calls Carlisle "cool". yeah Ben, we all know how much you loved PRick, lol.

Well that pretty much says it all.

Let's see McClueless explain this one away.

I'm wondering if Ben gave Joe a "it's him (Flip) or me" ultimatim?

they did sour on him, but there was alot of respect towards carlisle because carlisle wasnt afraid of ben's FT shooting and let him finish games. something irvine did not do.

ben also had some of his best years under carlisle. but maybe we should forget about all that because this dumbass is our coach, and we should wait for him to leave before we rip on him.

i'm not a Flip apologist, but, didn't Ben say that he didn't appreciate Carlisle because he basically said stay the fuck out of the way on offense? but now Carlisle was "cool"? and we rip on the Pistons for their double talk when a coach or player is gone? Ben had his best years under Carlisle because he was 3-4 years younger, IMO. of course, his numbers will probably go up this season a bit because he'll be hell-bent on making a statement.

i just find it ridiculous that a player will go on about doing what's best of the team, but his ego is too big to swallow staying on the bench when it counts.

sorry your feelings were hurt Ben. i'm sure you'll come out in 2007 as a reliable scorer with a fantastic FT% and have the last laugh. i love Ben for all he's done and all the great games i got to watch, but the dude's on the other side now. can't wait for this media bitchfest to end.

I think he's mentioning Carlisle to underscore how much he doesn't like Flip. Everybody knows he didn't get along with prick either, but by mentioning him and not Flip I think he's sending a message to the Flipper.

i think on one hand ben had a point about our attitude for the whole season; i also was saying that we were not preparing to win the title even though we were winning and had a great record.

we were not rebounding or defending the way we needed to. nobody showed any concern we were getting killed on the boards, or that we never drove to the hoop. those made a recipe for disaster.

ben was right about that. but the whole benching him for the 4th thing is nonsense. we needed offense and ben doesn't seem to get it that his offense, is OFFENSIVE!

the most revealing comment is the one where he talks about how there was no defensive system, they were just playing defense on natural ability. Face it, Flip doesn't know jack squat about defense. It doesnt matter how many "defnsive drills" he runs.
all he knows is how to do zone.

ben was right about that. but the whole benching him for the 4th thing is nonsense. we needed offense and ben doesn't seem to get it that his offense, is OFFENSIVE!
When you are down, on the road in the 4th quarter, you need stops. Not offense.

You turn stops into trips to the line, second chance points and transition scoring.

That is how you get back into a game and re-establish aggressiveness.

Just my two cents.

except when they were 'hack a shaq-ing BEN!'

that's how bad he was at the line. they were fouling him after he rebounded or when he got the ball on offense.

yes, you do need stops and rebounds. but when ben is such a HUGE liability on offense, particularly in playoff basketball, it kills your offense too.

miami did not respect him on the offensive end at all- not even the slightest bit. that meant they were clamping down on our shooters and clogging up the passing lanes. THAT (along with fatigue certainly) is a huge reason they were able to make us look horrible on offense.

we were better off with sheed and dice in there IMO. dice can rebound and defend and help get stops, and at least he's a threat on the offensive end. a good one at that.

also, our stops were not leading to trips to the line- that was a huge problem with our team. or, we would get to the line but it would be ben shooting!

as i said, they were putting him at the line on purpose because his FT shooting had somehow gotten even WORSE than it already was! what did he shoot, 19% or something ridiculous!? i could shoot that blindfolded and i don't get $6 million a year. i know his whole wrist problem, but STILL....

anyway, as i said earlier a HUGE weakness of our team was that we did NOT drive to the hoop. flip designed the whole offense to be a jump shooting one. we never drove to the hoop at all, which gave us NO chance at taking free throws.

in playoff basketball, a team that strictly relies on the jumper is bound to fail. when defenses tighten up, and legs get tired, the shots aren't available or if they are they fall short or are highly contested.

so you need to be able to take people off the dribble, or work the post (something non-existent in flip's offense, it seemed) or drive straight to the hoop and get contact and get to the line.

we never did those things and i said all year on the pistons board i was on at the time, that we were doomed come playoffs. plus we were not working on delfino, a very capable contributor, and as a whole we had no bench to go to. people said i was crazy and should just enjoy the wins.

but i said it was fool's gold back then. looks like i was right on the money. i'm not trying to say i'm smart or i deserve credit or anything- ANYBODY with true knowledge of basketball could see it coming.

we didn't rebound, or even box out at times. so we were giving up tons of points in the paint or sending people to the line all the time. and on the other end we were not scoring in the paint at all. we were DEAD LAST in the nba in that category! that's ridiculous for a team like ours!

we had better take advantage of someone like delfino's skills and even flip's too. they can take people off the dribble and finish around the hoop.

prince too needs to drive more AND post up more. sheed should be stuck down low with a hot glue gun. THEN he can work his way out on the perimeter. instead he was allowed to just sit outside and chuck shots from deep all year.

he is an excellent post up player and we rarely took advantage of that, it disgusted me.

if we used the team we had last year properly, there is NO reason we should not have won the title. we had all the necessary pieces. but we pissed that chance away with our poor coaching, our arrogant attitude (not doing all the little things that had made us sucessful in the past), and our inability to utilize some good players on our bench.

OK, sorry for the long post! :)

I hate Flip.

well in 2006-07 you're going to have to be more specific when you make that statement.

i know mccosky's words are taken with great consequence, so enjoy:


Fri, Oct 6, 2006 at 4:46 PM

Chris McCosky

Ben being Ben (http://info.detnews.com/pistonsblog/index.cfm)

It was disappointing for me to read the ESPN.Com interview with Ben Wallace today. Check it out if you haven't already, but take it with a grain of salt.

When I last talked to Ben, he said he wanted to make a classy break from the Pistons. He didn't want to dump on all the great things he did here, and he didn't want to tarnish his reputation and relationship he'd built with the fans here. That lasted less than a week into training camp. That's really too bad.

Look, it's not a news flash that Ben didn't like Flip Saunders. Ben didn't like Larry Brown, Rick Carlisle, George Irvine or Doc Rivers, either. When I told Chauncey Billups that Ben was quoted as saying he liked Carlisle, Billups rolled his eyes and shook his head. It's simply not true. The two barely spoke to each other. If he was angry at Saunders for keeping him out of the offensive mix, Carlisle was much worse. Carlisle basically told him to defend, rebound and stay the hell out of the way on offense.

All of Ben's beefs come back to the same issue. Like it or not, David Stern altered the game after the Pistons won the title in 2004. He altered it more after the Spurs won in 2005. He felt defenses were strangling the life out of the game, so he essentially legislated tough, physical defense out of it. In so doing, he legislated against Ben's biggest asset. Where a team could get away with a lesser offensive player or two in 2004, it is nearly impossible to do so now, especially on a superstar-less team like the Pistons. Ben could always make up for his offensive weaknesses with his powerful defensive presence. After 2005, Ben's ability to impact the game with his defense was weakened. So he's dealing with that and then the Pistons hire Flip, an offensive-minded coach. To Ben, it was like piling on. Flip had no chance with Wallace in the face of all of that.

Despite Wallace's jabs in the ESPN interview, despite Wallace throwing him under the bus in the Cleveland series last season, despite Wallace showing him up by refusing to re-enter the game in Orlando last year, Saunders refuses to jab back. (Although, he had a pretty strong line when asked about Wallace complaining that he didn't play in the fourth quarter of Game 6 in Miami -- "That's the only quarter we outscored Miami.") Saunders has and continues to go out of his way to praise Wallace for all he's done for the franchise. He has said repeatedly that Wallace's defensive presence is essentially irreplaceable. Yet, all Wallace appears to hear is Saunders saying the Pistons will be better offensively without him. That's too bad.

I sincerely hope people don't take Wallace's latest rant and use it as an excuse for the Pistons collapse last year. As Billups and others have said, whatever friction there was between Wallace and Saunders had no impact on the chemistry of the team, on or off the court. For the most part, Wallace kept his feelings about Flip to himself. Wallace didn't play less hard or with less intensity because he was angry at Flip. And the majority the players had been around too long, seen too much to be distracted by that.

On another topic, no, Stephen Jackson and those other Pacers players did NOT go to the strip club to celebrate Rick Carlisle's contract extension. Just kidding. But you have to love those knuckle-headed Pacers, don't you. I am thinking Jackson's days in the NBA might be numbered. He was already on a zero-tolerance probation after the brawl and his other discretions.

I'm just happy that Pistons vs. Bulls should be a DAMN fun game to watch. [smilie=shift.gif]

http://msn.foxsports.com/id/5488842_36_1.jpg

McCoskey is just as guilty of everyone else when it comes to manipulating a quote.

What an idiot.

That was a weak article. Made me feel like he was on the payroll...oh wait..nevermind[smilie=burgerking.: [smilie=paca.gif]

so what happens when ben wallace disses flip, but flip is gone too?

does mccosky's head explode trying to make both sides look bad?

what would be particularly interesting, is if flip would purposely have us foul ben in a close game with the bulls.

THAT would be interesting to watch play out.

what would be particularly interesting, is if flip would purposely have us foul ben in a close game with the bulls.

THAT would be interesting to watch play out.

he would lose what little respect he had left around here....plus Sheed would probably turn on him.

you think so? i don't think there's much respect for flip to lose, to begin with.

2nd, i think the players would understand that its a sensible (although uncomfortable) strategy.

i mean, the guy can barely get the ball to the rim and shoots the worst FT percentage in the history of the game- or very close to it.

so it is a way to take him out of the game, like it or not. i could see us doing it if we 'had to' and i don't think the players would have any more of a problem with it than it we were doing it to shaq. hey, at least shaq can hit FTs from time to time when he's challenged like that. ben doesn't really seem able to.

i really think the players would hate it.

they already seem to dislike the zone defense because it challenges their manhood.......playing hack-a-ben would piss off the entire team, imo.

Chauncey would do it in a heartbeat. He's a sellout.

well we have played hack-a-shaq before and while the guys dislike it, they want to win more than anything.

and with the percentages ben shoots, its a no brainer to me.

if it would upset our guys though, imagine how much it would upset ben! we could have more malice at the palace! ;)

"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 to 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."

You whiny little bitch. Bow to my demands, or else? What a great attitude for your captain to have...

The fact is we played mostly man to man defense last season and that's the way Ben wanted it. He hated the idea of playing zone so Flip didn't make us play zone.

So, Flip let's Ben have his way and we don't play as much zone as we could/should have and then Ben bitches about our D after he leaves? WTF?

STFU and count your money. I'm happy Ben got paid. He deserved it. For all his hard work and effort dude deserved to break the bank.

I'm just extremely happy the Pistons didn't offer him that much money. At his age and the situation we're in he wasn't worth it.

But for crying out loud just STFU and enjoy your new surroundings and let your play speak for you.

And if people wanna trash Flip for making comments then people need to bash Ben for responding or making his comments as well.

all of this does show that there were much greater problems in the piston lockerroom, as many of us suspected.

and it also explains why, despite winning another DPOY award, ben wallace did not look like himself for most of the year. very often he looked disinterested on defense and when 'going after' rebounds. he did not play with the intensity we needed and we were so used to seeing from him.

it appears now that he was coasting along, probably because he was pissed off.

It shows Ben is like most other NBA players

He's complained about every single coach he's had in the NBA!

This image of hard work, toughness and all that is great and he should be (and is) constantly praised for it but sometimes he acts like a spoiled little kid.

The locker room problem? It started with Ben IMO.

He had a problem, went to the coach and when Flip didn't give in completely Ben whined and pouted like a bitch. His example effected the rest of the team.

He questioned Flip in the playoffs and that tells other players that it's OK for them (Dice, Sheed & Prince all said shit) to do it as well. It's not good for the team and in that situation it pretty much kills your chances of making the Finals.

It's a fucking surprise we won 60+ games considering one of the leaders had such a shitty attitude. He coasted and the other guys would have noticed it during the season would have slacked off as well.

Nice example for the team!

I never thought I'd type this but:

Fuck Ben Wallace.

Blakely's Take


Did anyone know Big Ben?

Take him for what he does, not what he says.

That's the only way I can view this Chicago version of Ben Wallace, which as we've come to find out this week, is definitely different than the one we knew in Detroit.

It seems what appeared to be an amicable breakup between Ben Wallace and the Detroit Pistons won't be so amicable after all.

Wallace took the money from Chicago, which paid him WAY, WAY more than any 32-year-old NBA player with his limitations offensively should be making.

Detroit said cool, you want the money, take it.

Have a nice life.

So why is it, less than a week into training camp, Ben has delivered more big shots at Detroit than he took in six years as a player?

His latest blow comes courtesy of an ESPN.com story in which Wallace talked about, among other things, how he didn't like playing for Flip and that one of his favorite coaches - and you'll love this - was Rick Carlisle!

Yes, the same Rick Carlisle who used to pull him out of games when teams went to Hack-a-Ben and Ben went to brick-a-free throw!

Chauncey probably summed it up best when asked about Ben's most recent verbal jabs at Flip.

"I didn’t think he was any different towards Flip than he was towards Larry or Rick," Billups said.

As great a player as Ben Wallace is, he has had a run-in at some point with just about every coach he has had.

Does that make him a bad guy?

Of course not.

Over the course of a long season, disagreements between players and coaches is inevitable. So from that standpoint, Ben isn't all that unusual.

And the reasons it has never been a big deal in the past is because at the end of the day, all of those coaches came to the realization that they had a job to do - coach the team - and Wallace knew he had a job to do, which was to produce when he was on the floor.

He can talk about the team putting more emphasis on offense as being a problem, but that still doesn't explain why his numbers in just about every statistical category defensively dropped off last season.

And as far as being part of the offense, Saunders had nothing to do with Wallace shooting just 41.6 percent from the free throw line, and in the games that really matter - the playoffs - he was even worse, shooting just 27 percent.

It's clear that taking shots - especially on the court - is not necessarily his strongsuit, which is why the comments he has made of late about Saunders have been, well, odd.

He was always great at putting things that bothered him in perspective, and moving on to the next challenge.

And yet, here we are in this Groundhog Day-like fog where he seems to be, almost daily, dredging up something about last season that bothered him.

He was the blue-collar, nose-to-the-grind guy that everyone seemed able to connect with on some level.

But based on some of the things he has said lately, it gives everyone who has watched him in Detroit, as well as those who played with him, a reason to pause and wonder if any of us knew the real Ben Wallace.

I wonder how Mo Evans' alleged "spying" fit into all of this?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v63/GlennDanzig/mo_spy.jpg

Perhaps the worst thing about Ben leaving is the tearing down of the Detroit legend that Ben was sure to become.