Re: MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand? <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%">MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand?</span>[/size]<span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:100%">Piston's legacy on line in playoffs</span><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%">April 20, 2006BY MITCH ALBOMFREE PRESS COLUMNIST</span>Don't try this at home. Ben Wallace takes his left wrist in his right hand and squeezes. The wrist shifts, making a soft cracking noise that sends a shiver down an observer's spine.And that's his good hand."That's what happens when I'm shooting free throws," he says, flopping the right hand now -- the one that has been injured for years. "I can shoot 10 straight good ones. On the 11th, it just slips out. I don't know when it's gonna happen.""And you have to fix it," I ask, "right there on the free-throw line?""Yeah.""You just pop it back in?""I just pop it back in."He shrugs, the way a mechanic shrugs if he needs a new wrench. This is Ben Wallace communicating. Pistons fans' favorite cartoon action hero says almost everything with a deep, laconic voice, but the things he says can jolt you.Like the fact that he wants to sign back with Detroit after the playoffs, which start this weekend, but retiring here "would be kind of tough."Or the fact that he wishes he could apologize to family members he recently lost.Or the incident a few weeks ago, when he refused to go back into a game in the fourth quarter. He ignored two requests by Flip Saunders, who had taken him out a few minutes earlier. This, after Wallace had screamed some unprintables at his coach. Coming from the ultimate lunch bucket player, the actions stunned fans."What I was saying was, 'Look, if we're not gonna play to win the game ... there's no need to put us out there,' " Ben says now. He claims he had gone to Saunders earlier in the game, complaining that the team was lapsing into one-on-one basketball. He felt his words were ignored. It bugged him."It's the kind of stuff that happens ... but this time, a couple of writers were sitting a little closer to our bench and they caught whiff of it and decided to make a story out of it. ... It didn't bother me. ... It didn't bother Flip. ... I mean, two or three games before that, Rasheed (Wallace) was having a good night and Flip was ... gonna put (Antonio) McDyess in for him and I go up and tell him, 'Man, (Rasheed's) rolling ... let him go. I'll come out.' But they didn't catch that."He shakes his big shoulders and looks at the floor. It is all part of a maturation of Ben Wallace -- as a man, a player, a Piston and an NBA star. As we enter playoff season, Wallace, the team captain and free agent-to-be, could be looking at his second championship, or his last weeks with this franchise.Or something bigger.His legacy.Protecting his mighty bodyLet's get back to the wrist thing. In Orlando, more than a few years back, he says, he needed surgery for carpal tunnel issues. He says he would "come out and shoot five shots and then my hand would go dead."The surgery, however, cut into some ligaments near his right wrist, he says, thus leaving him with a hand that is sort of like a half-screwed-on bottle cap. The wrong angle, it can come loose."I spent one summer going to two or three specialists," Wallace says, "but they all said the same thing: that I pretty much have to get the wrist reconstructed ... surgery, pins inserted. ... I'll wait until my career is over. I'm not getting cut anymore. Not while I'm playing."So the wrist can pop loose when he dunks, or when he falls on his hands, or when he tries to make the perfect free throw. Thinking about it, he admits, only makes his free throws more unpredictable. He has an awful percentage at the line -- 41.6 for the season -- but who knew that with every shot he has to wonder if his hand is going to flop like a noodle?"My teammates know about it," he says. "If I shoot an air ball, the first thing they do is look at my hand and they'll be like, 'There it goes.' "He shrugs again."Just one of those things."Right. And traction is just another way to lie down.The big career decisionOn to free agency. Wallace's contract is up this year. He is 31."Do you want to stay here?" I ask."Oh, of course," he says. "Of course.""But if a lesser team could offer you bigger money?""I mean, I wouldn't want to go to a place where the team feels like they gotta unload guys in order to pay me and we're gonna be in the lottery next season. ... I've been there before, and it's not fun.""Do you look at this as your one big contract chance?""I know this is my one and only chance right here. But I don't want to make a big deal of it. ... I haven't said anything to Joe (Dumars) about it. ... Me and Joe got a great relationship. We come from similar backgrounds, so I pretty much know I don't have to say anything. He already knows."If Wallace can be secured, the Pistons will have the best starting five in basketball back for at least another season. And the 6-foot-9, 240-pound center could well be on his way to finishing his career in Detroit. But even if he does, he says he doubts he'll put down roots here once he's finished playing."I think it would be kind of tough on me," he says. "Being here as a retired player ... having to watch the team every day and night and me not playing? I think that would bother me ... that competitive nature is something you never lose."So where would he go?"Oh, maybe Virginia" -- where his wife, Chanda, is from. "Or maybe back to Alabama" -- where he grew up. "I might go back there."He smiles. "Buy me a nice ranch or something."Rancher Ben?The pain of family lossesWhile many people envy Wallace and his success, the Pistons' captain has endured much that the public doesn't know about. He lost his mother, father, grandmother, grandfather and a brother over the past few years, he says. As a result, "I'm just learning to appreciate life, man. When I'm out there playing and I think things are getting bad -- just appreciate life. ... I've got a beautiful family. I've got healthy kids."After the incident with Saunders, Wallace blanched at questions about an apology, noting that he hadn't apologized to loved ones he'd lost. When I ask what he meant by this, he hooks his hands together and looks at his thumbs."The last couple of years I've lost people that I probably owe apologies to. People that I probably should have apologized to. ... But they never asked me to ..."What I'm really saying is it's tough to apologize about something" at the moment. "It's tough when you're upset. ... Maybe I can still come back to these people now, who are here, but the people that's passed ... I can never go back to them."I ask if he'd like to apologize to his mother or father -- something children often experience after their parents' deaths."My mother and I had a great relationship. We were open about everything. My father -- I really didn't get a chance to know him the way I wanted to. We weren't close when I was growing up. He was a trucker. He wasn't always around. But we were working on it. We were getting closer ..."He scrunches his lips."It was one of those things."Right. And heartache is just something you put ice on.The sign of the good timesSo here we are, the playoffs, the end of Ben Wallace's first decade in the NBA -- a league he leads this year in offensive rebounds, often the lifeblood of a championship team. He is still arguably the best defender in basketball, he's great at steals, and he has no ego about points. He is frequently seen as "the face"-- or "the body" -- of the Pistons, and the image of him swinging a sledgehammer is as woven into the franchise now as the Big Boy is to Big Boy restaurants.When he arrived here six years ago, Wallace admits, "I didn't know a whole lot about Detroit." Now he knows it only slightly less than it knows him.Or thinks it does. Wallace, to my mind, is still a paradox, a quiet man with screaming emotions, a powerful giant with a kid-like sense of humor, an unselfish player who nonetheless wants to be appreciated and listened to. When I ask if that incident on the bench had to do with not getting enough offensive touches, this is what he said:"That's the furthest thing from the truth. ... Then again, it might be true."Try to make sense of that. Meanwhile, Ben Wallace tries to make other things: He tries to make his mark, make his fortune, make his history.And make his free throws.Now, if that dang wrist would just stay put.</span></div>Sourceetroit Free Press
Re: MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand? Is there anyone out there who really thinks Ben will not resign with the pistons? I know that he could probably get more money somewhere else but do you think that he will ever leave the pistons? I dont think he will since he is the ultimate team player and detroit was the team that gave him his start. I dont know if loyalty means much to big athleats anymore but i think it does to Ben and i sure hope that Joe does everything possible to bring him back this year. I would hate to think that detroit would lose both captains in one off season (Yzerman being the other one who is most likely going to retire after the Wings win the Cup!)
Re: MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand? Ben's not going to sign with any other time but Detroit. I posted it because of the wrist thing, I didn't know that his wrist did that.
Re: MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand? I always saw Ben as a loyal guy, and I can't see him signing anywhere other than Detroit because of what the franchise did for him and what he did for the franchise.There are only a handful of guys who are still loyal to their franchises these days, and he is one of them.
Re: MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand? he is going to get alot of money along with Chauncey at the end of the year. but seeing the decline in his play in this last year, i have to believe that he will not be playing for too much longer. and that whole wrist thing is pretty wierd...lol
Re: MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand? I don't see Ben next year in a jersey that isn't a Pistons one. He had his little rift with FLip but it is the past and he knows we have a winning formula.
Re: MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand? PN13 is right about the decline in his play...he didnt put up the greatest numbers and his energy level isnt quite the same..he is still a valuable asset to this teams success...he will sign a contract with the pistons but i cant imagine it either breaking the bank or being too long term
Re: MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand? no, it wont be a bank breaker but it sure WILL be alot of moolah and/or SHOULD be one...pay him for being the Hardest working players in the league for the last 3-4-5 years
Re: MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand? no, it wont be a bank breaker but it sure WILL be alot of moolah and/or SHOULD be one...pay him for being the Hardest working players in the league for the last 3-4-5 years
Re: MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand? i agree, he should be paid accordingly, but i think for the benefit of the team, he wont let it be a bank breaker, sort of the same way tayshaun did this year...he could have gotten more elsewhere, but being around the team and the concepts and ideologies that grow from it, it pays bigger dividends in the future for these players...these are smart men who realize and see the bigger picture
Re: MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand? <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Pistonfan11 @ Apr 23 2006, 12:11 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I don't see Ben next year in a jersey that isn't a Pistons one. He had his little rift with FLip but it is the past and he knows we have a winning formula.</div>That thing with Flip was blown out of proportion. Flip said on PTI that he had told that starters they were done so Ben started taking off his tape. So when Flip wanted him to go back in he wasn't ready because he had removed his tape. Nobody inside the Pistons organization made a big deal about it.
Re: MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand? well, thats evident...no punishment. if it really meant something, the staff would have done something...but maybe they might have. but then they could have came up with the idea thatit would just cause more trouble...but now i see why he didnt apologize: BECAUSE NOTHING WAS WRONG!!!!
Re: MITCH ALBOM: Big Ben's last stand? i am more shocked that this still is a point of discussion in so many places on so many shows and by so many broadcasters...did it look like anything was wrong during game one between ben and flip...i dont think so
