First and foremost, I'd like to thank Dallas for proving my "Beware of the Ides of March" column to be true; winning in March means nothing. Since I was dead on with that, I'd like to make a small request: can we please give the East some love?
Look, I'll be the first to say that I picked the Spurs to win the title before the playoffs started, and despite what Floyd Mayweather might think ($34,000 on Denver in San Antonio? And he got it right!), they held strong. The Spurs shouldn't have much trouble with Phoenix either, because running all over Kobe is a lot easier than running over damn near a decade's worth of unstoppable team defense.
The point is that they are still going to have to play someone from the East to win it all, and that someone is going to be good. Real good. Since New Jersey is a joke, and LeBron James isn't ready, they'll be playing the winner of Detroit/Chicago. We've seen in the past where the winner of conference championships are basically crowned champs, but this is almost unheard of where two semifinal round series will determine who plays in the finals. Didn't the Commish try to eliminate this after having the two best teams meet in the West semis last year?
Since I've already given you the West representative, I guess it's time to breakdown the East. To do that, you have to start with the man in the middle. Not John Amaechi (he faded faster than Scott Skiles' hairline); I'm talking about Ben Wallace.
Remember him? He's the guy who "lead" the Pistons to four straight conference championship series then signed with the closest thing to a rival they had because they threw $60 mil at him. So who really got the better end of the deal there? The answer is not as simple as right or wrong, black and white. There is a real gray area here that has to be examined further before a winner can be declared.
The Bulls needed to do something. The Pistons were clearly in a class above them last season, and they needed to improve. They had young pieces in place and needed a veteran, a proven winner, to be the glue the holds them together. If you can snatch that player from a division rival, even better.
The problem is that they had to overpay to get that piece, and it didn't really improve them that much. They were already second in the league in opponent's field goal percentage and in the top 10 in rebounding. What they didn't have was a post presence on offense.
Well, guess what? They still don't. They drafted a Ben Wallace clone in Tyrus Thomas and traded a younger and nearly as talented version of Big Ben in Tyson Chandler to get P.J. Brown, leaving their glaring weakness still exposed.
Now they enter this series completely outmatched at every position except one (small forward), and still feel like they made the right move. GM John Paxson will tell you that Wallace brings the intangibles to this otherwise young team that they need to succeed, but last I checked the going rate for good locker room guys was less than $60 mil.
Have no fear Bulls fans, because there is more than meets the eye to Ben's game, just asked the man who pulled the trigger on the deal. In case you missed it, last week he had these gems to say about your high-haired savior: "He's very underrated offensively" and "he's the kind of player that you can run the offense through."
Trust me, I watched nearly every one of Wallace's games with the Pistons, it is impossible to underrate him as an offensive player. Words cannot describe how brutal he is with the basketball. I had almost forgotten how bad he was after watching Chris Webber fill his position in the offense flawlessly until Wallace shot one over the backboard from 12 feet in the last regular season meeting of the year, reminding me how glad I was that the Pistons didn't match the offer.
As for running the offense through him, that statement made me laugh out loud. He is talking about the same player who butted heads with the previous three coaches in Detroit because they refused to give him the ball because of how bad he was. He's talking about the same player that when Rick Carlisle coached against the Pistons with the Pacers actually refused to guard him off the ball. He's talking about arguably the worst offensive player in the game.
Look, Ben Wallace is really good at what he does. He's and above average post defender, a great help defender, and a great rebounder. If those are your weakness as a team, then Ben Wallace is a great fit. Just know that by paying for those services you are also getting a liability offensively in return. The Pistons could afford to play four on five because their other four were good enough. The Bulls' other four aren't at that level.
If they lose this series, the Bulls are going to find themselves in the exact same position they were in after last season: a middle of the pack team in the weaker conference with no inside help offensively. Only they will have $15 mil less in cap room to fix the problem.
Ultimately, the winner of this series will have gotten it right. If the Pistons win, there were smart to not throw $15 mil a year at someone who plays on one side of the ball, and if Chicago gets to the finals, it was well worth it.
I just don't see how Chicago can pull it off. The Pistons are too tough defensively, too fluid offensively, and too deep up front to contend with. Their only hope is that Ben Gordon and Kirk Hinrich get hot and out-shoot the Pistons' backcourt. It may happen in one or two games, but Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton are too much. They are what Bulls fans hope their guard combo can develop into one day.
Maybe Chicago is a little hungrier because they haven't won since No. 23 was around, but hunger is an intangible. As listed above, I'll take talent over intangibles any day. Pistons in six.
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