Has-Ben?

Most athletes leave town and Detroit turns the page. You’re not one of us any more? Have a good life, pal – and don’t let the Ambassador Bridge hit you in the posterior on your way out of town.

With a rare few we leave the umbilical cord attached. We’re going to be writing about two of those rare few in the next two days – Ben Wallace today, Isiah Thomas on Friday on the occasion of his (less than triumphant) return as Knicks coach.

Really, who held this town’s fascination upon leaving? Kirk Gibson did. Maybe Jack Morris. Joey Harrington does now, for some perverted reason. Barry Sanders. Sergei Fedorov … not really. Grant Hill would have if bad things hadn’t started happening to him – and never really quit happening – about five minutes after the ink dried on his Orlando contract.

And even then he probably would have lingered in Detroit’s consciousness if the guy who arrived in his place hadn’t so completely and unexpectedly mushroomed into a phenomenon. And Ben Wallace was all of that. With the Body by God, the Rodman Lite coiffures and the Balled Fist of Fury playing style, he became the essence of a blue-collar team in its ascendancy, and he never stood taller than when they handed him the 2004 Larry O’Brien Trophy and he hoisted it on those blacksmith’s arms to symbolize the return to glory of a once- and once-again proud franchise.

So there’s no mystery to the fascination Ben Wallace still holds for Detroit.

The only mystery is figuring out what he is: The face of selflessness who did every ounce of dirty work in the building of a champion, or the guy whose every notable action in the past eight months has been blatantly selfish?

Let’s unravel the mystery of Ben:

Would he have donned that headband against team rules six years ago?

Oh, I don’t think so. He struck everybody as a guy who’d ask “how high?” if the third assistant ball boy told him to jump.

But somewhere along the way, it seems, he got caught up in the Mystique of Being Ben. He still played harder than everybody else. He still had a motor that raced 100 rpms faster than anybody else’s. He still had muscle twitch that much twitchier than the next guy’s.

The difference became this: He thought all those things also certified him as a basketball strategist. He thought they gave him license to become a full partner in those parts of the game where he was clearly out of his element – anything that involved touching the ball other than rebounding it or stealing it or swatting it from a shooter’s hand, basically. He thought they put him above scrutiny, reproach or the mildest criticism. He thought because he worked hard, anything else he did on the court or said off of it should be accepted or excused. At least that’s what his body language has suggested.

He went from Ben Wallace, a player built from hard work, to Ben Wallace, corporate brand. He is as prideful a man as you’ll find in a hundred lifetimes, and without that wellspring of pride he never would have gone from undrafted free agent to NBA All-Star. It was his greatest strength. It became his greatest weakness.

Which explains why he’s been so cranky lately. Sure, he’s always been moody. He bristled – rightfully – when Rick Carlisle fairly laughed at Ben’s suggestion that he could improve offensively, Carlisle telling him never mind, stick to what you do. He barked – justifiably – when Larry Brown wrung his hands and suggested the Pistons weren’t playing hard enough to suit him.

But he crossed the Rubicon last spring with his sit-down strike in Orlando, refusing Flip Saunders’ entreaty to re-enter a game, and then he pitched his tent on that side of the river when he openly criticized his coach during the playoffs for stressing offense over defense in practices over the season.

Why did he do that? One theory: Because Ben Wallace saw his imprint on the organization – and his impact on basketball – fading. Plain and simple, he saw the game changing and he didn’t like it. What he didn’t see – or refused to acknowledge, at least – was an even more serious threat to his star status: The diminution of his physical skills. That’ll make most players cranky.

Ben Wallace used to make four or five breathtaking plays every game, and by the end of last season it was two or three a week – maybe. When a lot of great players hit that stage, they look around them for reasons – not at themselves. It can’t be me, so what is it? It’s the coach, your teammates, the officials, the way the game has evolved.

He can still be an effective player in this league, no question. He’ll still have nights where he gets 15 rebounds, or blocks seven shots, or chases down three loose balls on one possession to change a game’s dynamic. But he probably won last year’s Defensive Player of the Year Award on reputation more than performance, and he’s almost surely played in his last All-Star game – unless there’s a few hanging chads on those All-Star ballots, or the ghost of Mayor Daley is tallying the votes.

It bugged him last year, almost surely, to hear fans chanting “M-V-P! M-V-P!” when Chauncey Billups stepped to the free-throw line late in Pistons wins. He was in a contract year. He knew that, at 31 going on 32, with the six best years of his career behind him, it would surely be his last chance at making the kind of money that provides documented proof of a player’s stature.

Now that the contract is signed and the expectations are somewhere north of enormous – all he has to do is lead the Bulls to the first NBA title since Michael Jordan left to justify a $60 million deal for a guy who couldn’t score 20 points if you locked him in the gym alone – he’s feeling a different pressure.

With the Bulls at 3-8 and Big Ben getting killed in the newspapers and on the radio, he wore the headband he knew he wasn’t supposed to wear. Then he and the Bulls couldn’t even agree on what the injuries to his wrist and finger were. The team said a sprain and a bruise. He said ligament damage and bone chips. Thursday afternoon the Bulls said Big Ben was questionable for their next game with a stiff neck? A stiff neck? Something’s up. A broken neck, maybe, would have kept the Ben Wallace Detroit knew out of a game. But a stiff neck?

The Bulls are going to inch back toward .500 because they play a lot of home games against beatable teams over the next month, and maybe the dustup between Ben Wallace and Scott Skiles is muted for a while. But there are going to be other incidents. If he groused with the Pistons – an organization that had seen the best of him and rightfully gave him a wide swath, filled with players who breathed his credo of selflessness – what are the chances of harmony in Chicago, where he felt betrayed and undermined before the regular season tipped off, and where the locker room isn’t nearly as clubby?

So where does this go from here?

It isn’t likely to end well. The consensus of opinion in Chicago is that while the headband rule might indeed be petty, the team is right and Wallace wrong. They’re already asking how the Bulls can get out of his contract.

Not easily. Even though the Bulls front-loaded his deal – highly unusual, but perhaps an indication that they anticipated trying to trade him late in his contract – the only way they can dump him now would be to add an attractive young player to the package and take on an even higher salary over a shorter term in return. Chris Webber from Philly, who has one season after this one left at about $22 million, would fit that profile, but it would cost the Bulls Wallace and one of their young stars – Luol Deng, perhaps, or Ben Gordon. The Knicks would probably be glad to give them Stephon Marbury. Attractive options, huh?

Who’d have guessed back in July, when Detroit might as well have worn a black armband, never mind a headband, to mourn Big Ben’s departure, that one month into the season the Bulls would almost surely ship him back here if they could only get out of his contract? Who’d have guessed we’d be talking about Ben Wallace, the face of a team that symbolized a return to the values of teamwork, as a divisive force? Who’d have guessed they’d be wondering in Chicago if they paid $60 million for a Has-Ben?