Tayshaun Prince, as stoic as NBA players come, couldn't quite suppress a smile before tipoff when Mason blasted his name – "Tayshaun Prrrrrrince! – by way of welcoming him back to The Palace.
He also couldn't help but notice the chants – "We want Prince! We want Prince!" – that came from the crowd as the Pistons pulled away in their 106-89 win over Washington in a Sunday matinee.
"It felt good to hear,' he said afterward. "It was good to see a lot of familiar faces. I've had a long break, so hopefully Tuesday I can come in and help and kind of pick up where I left off."
Prince, acquired from Boston at Thursday's trade deadline in exchange for forwards Jonas Jerebko and Gigi Datome, got to Detroit on Saturday night and took his physical at The Palace on Sunday before the game. He was cleared to play and in uniform – mostly because he hadn't packed a suit in his hurried scramble to get here from Sacramento, where Boston was about to practice when he was taken off the team bus and informed of the trade, with a stopover in Boston to shove some things together – but Stan Van Gundy had no intention of using him.
"He didn't have a practice with us and we didn't go through any offense as the walk-through today, so I don't know what we would have done with him out there," he said. "Tomorrow we can do what we did with Reggie (Jackson) on Saturday and get him through some stuff and he'll know what's going on. He's a smart guy, but I didn't want to put him in a bad situation. He was into it on the bench, really having fun. I think he's going to enjoy this group. It's a good group to play with."
The only two players left on the roster who were here when Prince was traded to Memphis in January 2013 are Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond.
"Definitely new faces," he said. "I watched (Friday's) game against Chicago. Both games were similar in the sense of coming out in the second half and playing strong. They made some threes and got the crowd into the game, but the most important thing was the defense was great in the second half. They picked up their energy. The thing for me is, when I'm on the floor, when I'm off the floor, help these guys out. Me and Stan had some conversations about what his plans are, so we'll see. The first few games will probably be just put me in slowly and see how things go and go from there."
Van Gundy intends to have Caron Butler and Prince share small forward, though Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will continue to draw some minutes there, as well.
Van Gundy heard the chants for Prince, too, and with two minutes left and the Pistons comfortably ahead, he walked down to say something to him.
"I said, 'If I put you in the game right now, this place would explode.' And it would have, but I wasn't going to do that with two minutes to go. The guy sat there all night. I'll do that with young guys, but never with a veteran. He's not a mop-up guy. He's a high-level player and he'll play Tuesday night, so people will have their chance to get excited on Tuesday."