<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Ben Wallace let that sly smile creep across his lips, suggesting his impulse was to do what he's always done: speak his mind. For a moment, he had to be fighting the feeling to let loose on this question: Did he ever feel Pistons coach Flip Saunders had an appreciation for him? "You've got to ask Flip that," Wallace said Friday. Only, Wallace didn't ask you to go back and ask the Detroit Pistons. His teammates did, Wallace would say. They always appreciated him. Never did he doubt those Pistons championship bonds, that resourceful team that raised a most improbable NBA title banner to Auburn Hills' Palace rafters. And yet even still on the eve of meeting the Pistons for the first time since leaving as a free agent for the Chicago Bulls last summer, Wallace will tell you: "I never thought I was going to be able to walk away." </div> More Ben will be fired up for the Detroit game and it maybe just what we need to elevate ourself above a middle of the pack team.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post"> It's Tuesday, about 90 minutes before tip-off. Ben Wallace is sitting by himself in front of his corner locker wistfully watching the replay of the Pistons-Suns game from Sunday. Then, into the room walks a reporter from Detroit and, for an instant, Wallace looks disoriented. "I am sitting here watching my old team and talking to you," Wallace said, shaking his head. "It's crazy. I mean, it's so funny. It's like I am watching my team but it's not really my team anymore." Flash ahead to today and try to get a read on all that might be roiling in Wallace's heart, stomach and soul as he takes the court for the first time against his former teammates -- guys he sweat and fought with, won and lost with, for six seasons -- wearing the white and red of the rival Bulls. "Man," he said. Wallace can't immediately wrap his mind around it, though he reconciled with its eventuality the day he signed the four-year, $60 million contract with the Bulls in July. His thoughts race, his words tumble out more slowly, but it doesn't take long before he feels the gravity of it all. "It's tough not to think about it," he said. "For me it's going to be exciting to have the opportunity to play against those guys, to be on the same floor with those guys again. It's going to be exciting." He is asked what, for him, would be the perfect outcome?</div> Read more...
