Ben Wallace GONE!!!!

[Glenn]

If Ben got $60m then that is what he is "worth". He was worth $60m to the Bulls brass, but not to the Pistons brass.

I don't think he is being greedy, you guys can't expect him to turn this deal down, especially if he hates the coach and the direction that the team is going.

It's not like he is going to a lottery team, if they pull off a good deal for Chandler (Al Harrington?), they could be the best team in the East right now.

The real travesty is not that we traded Darko, it's what we got in return.

By the way, as of right now, I'd start DD and keep Dice in the same role. Lindsey being our #2 PG is almost as big of a porblem right now as Ben being gone IMO, if you take the emotional side of it out.

The shine has really come off Joe D's "best GM in the league" moniker, that's for sure.

[JS]

If Ben got $60m then that is what he is "worth". He was worth $60m to the Bulls brass, but not to the Pistons brass.

I don't think he is being greedy, you guys can't expect him to turn this deal down, especially if he hates the coach and the direction that the team is going.

It's not like he is going to a lottery team, if they pull off a good deal for Chandler (Al Harrington?), they could be the best team in the East right now.

The real travesty is not that we traded Darko, it's what we got in return.

By the way, as of right now, I'd start DD and keep Dice in the same role. Lindsey being our #2 PG is almost as big of a porblem right now as Ben being gone IMO, if you take the emotional side of it out.

The shine has really come off Joe D's "best GM in the league" moniker, that's for sure.

I agree, Joe and Billy D are the bad guys BEn did what he did because the CBA allows him to. Somebody should tell the Piston's brass the NBA has a soft cap.

I also think a suitable platoon of C's can be found cheaper than hoping the SF you sign at the BAE can score 12 ppg when he is a career 5 ppg guy.

[Moodini31]

Screw Ben Wallace. Good riddance. Sure he was great here and helped us to win a title, but now he's going to bolt for more money? That's ridiculous. Ben was an icon in Detroit, was extremely close with all of his teammates and was on a championship caliber team where he fit in perfectly. And a few extra bucks is more important than that?

Good, go, and take your aging 33 year old ass, your pathetic offensive skills, and your 24% free throw percentage with you.

A lot of that was me just being pissed off at Ben. I thought his heart was in Detroit and he wouldn't be like everyone else in the world and bolt for the cash. I'm disappointed. With all that said, the Pistons just got a lot worse. Joe D had a really bad year.

[Uncle Mxy]

This is the part where I hope and pray we win another championship to stick it to the people who left. And then I wake up.

[Taymelo]

You can't blame the Pistons for being too cheap to sign Ben, IMO, because I don't think it was Davidson refusing to pay a few million extra. I think it was Dumars refusing to tie up so much salary in an aging hustle player with few learned skills, in a fast changing offensive minded league.

In other words, it wasn't so much a penny pinching move as a strategic move.

Maybe it was the right one. Maybe it was the wrong one. But I honestly don't think the Pistons were worried as much about a few more million than they were the future direction of the team.

[bangpow]

Yeah, the Pistons just got worse, but I would take a down year over paying Ben $60 for the next 4 years.

Plus, the league (Stern) is moving away form the defensive-minded, grind-it-out, type of basketball and Ben was a liablity on the offensive end of the floor. The Pistons did often play 4-on-5 on offense and i don't care how much Ben bitched about not getting the ball, he couldn't score worth a damn.

That being said, i'm not too high on the remaining FA big men that are out there, either.

[metr0man]

Well we''ll see if Davidson is a cheap fuck or not right now. We have multiple needs, a big man to replace Ben, a slasher/scorer, and a backup PG. We still don't have cap room so............ seriously we should be signing all 3 of those, regardless of it goes into the luxury tax or not.

[Kilo]

I liked what Wetzel had to say in his yahoo piece. Basically he said that the Pistons should have paid Ben Wallace the money and kept him because our window to win was now, and we let that get away in hopes of being good in 4-5 years, when good simply won't be good enough because Lebron James, Dwight Howard and Dwayne Wade(Chris Bosh?) will be running the league. So we gave up being a contender now, in order to be good in the future, realizing being good doesn't win you championships.

The way you win in the nba is to contend and then tank and rebuild. If you try to consistantly be good, you'll forever be a play-off team but never will win a championship(you'll be capped out, getting mid-to-late first round picks). It's probably good bu$ine$$ to be a perennial play-off team, but don't expect to raise the trophy.

[Kilo]

Well we''ll see if Davidson is a cheap fuck or not right now. We have multiple needs, a big man to replace Ben, a slasher/scorer, and a backup PG. We still don't have cap room so............ seriously we should be signing all 3 of those, regardless of it goes into the luxury tax or not.

We don't have the salary cap space to sign anybody. We have the MLE and that's it. The MLE is roughly $5.4M - that's how much we have to spend on free-agents this off-season.

[b-diddy]

exactly kilo. signing ben wallace doesnt hamstring the pistons at all. regardless, we're still over the cap. next year, we're still over the cap (unless we let chauncy walk too... hmm, more likely than we think?). we're only going to be adding MLE pieces.

we have just as little flexibility now as if we signed ben.

which pisses me off that not one sports writer (maybe wojo) will say that.

instead, we'll get the same bs. of course, those same writers talked about how much cap space we got for trading darko. they might also mention the 'new' nba, where defense doesnt win. except the bulls are going to beat the holy fuck out of the pistons next year, and its not going to be cuz they can score.