I firmly believe that guards are so very important in today’s NBA that I don’t really believe you could challenge for championships without great guard play. The Bad Boys, with all the bruisers and bangers, proved that with Isiah and Joe and Vinnie Johnson. The current Pistons backcourt, Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton – they give you a chance. It would be hard to imagine any team with Chauncey and Rip as a starting backcourt that didn’t make the postseason and didn’t – even more than that – make a lot of noise in the postseason. And you add everybody else that wears a Pistons uniform and I guarantee you there’s not a general manager in this league that doesn’t believe the Pistons will be there standing at or near the end of the postseason.

I look at what Chauncey had done when he got extended starting minutes before the Pistons signed him as a free agent and it sure looked to me like he had the potential to score and distribute the basketball. There was something that Joe Dumars liked about him personally. I certainly trust Joe’s character evaluations. He’s as good as it gets when it comes to that, so I was confident that Chauncey was going to help us and be a solid, solid contributor for the Pistons and be a leader and a good guy to have around the locker room.

But I can’t tell you I realized he was going to be a legitimate MVP candidate. Looking back on it, when you think of what he can do, and how calm, cool and collected he is, and when you add the strength factor, it almost becomes a no-brainer that he’s one of the best in the league at his position. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Joe had that all figured out when he signed him. There’s no question that for some reason a lot of people whiffed on Chauncey Billups. We don’t need to stand here and call them all out. But they absolutely whiffed on this guy and gave Joe the opportunity to bring him in to Detroit. I think what may have scared people is his ability to score. There’s a certain unwritten taboo on a lot of people’s radar screen about scoring point guards. The common thinking is that makes him a shoot-first, pass-second player. What they don’t understand is there are guys like Chauncey who do whatever it takes for the team to win. If that means shoot, they’ll shoot. If that means pass, they’ll pass. He just needed the opportunity to prove that he was a sound decision-maker.

When the Pistons made the trade for Rip Hamilton, I’ve got to tell you I was a Jerry Stackhouse guy. I liked the fire he brought and I loved his abilities. And I really liked him as a person. I thought he was good for the Pistons and maybe just what the doctor ordered at the time. I think Joe, however, was looking more for someone who could fit into a system and didn’t necessarily need to be a dominant player when he was on the floor. And did he ever find him. This guy is so understated and such a pro and does all the little things on and off the court to make himself as good as he can be. And to make himself valuable to his team. Rip obviously has to be in better shape than 95 percent of the rest of the players in the league to – as he says – never stand in one spot for more than two seconds. He’s got a motor that won’t quit. And he’s willing to take all the shots that are there within the confines of the offense. If it’s spectacular, great; if it’s viewed as humdrum normal, that’s OK, too, as far as Rip is concerned. It still counts for two and helps the team.

It’s too early to say where they’ll end up ranking in NBA lore, but if they play four or five more seasons like they’ve played the last three or four, they will go down as one of the finest, most efficient, most professional and most explosive backcourts ever. They are truly very, very difficult to defend. And they both pass the ball so well. Chauncey, with this great assist-to-turnover ratio, is top-echelon point guard along with being an impossible-to-stop scorer. And Rip loves to pass and can pass it – and does. And I think they’re both excellent defenders, so the bottom line is you don’t want to be on the floor against those two guys. They’re poison on both ends of the court for you.

They both make each other better basketball players. Sometimes guys can play together for two or three seasons and you don’t see much improvement in their chemistry and their understanding for the other guy’s game. It gets to adequate and maybe that’s about as good as it gets. But in this case these guys know exactly what they need to do to play off of each other. I’m sure that Chauncey’s passes would be rated near-perfect by Rip and all Rip’s movements, cuts and screens clearly help Chauncey knock down all those big shots. Their timing is near-perfect at this point. If it gets any better, it’ll be off the charts.