The first time I ever heard Chris Webber’s name was almost exactly 20 years ago - I suddenly feel very, very old -- in the winter of 1987. He was an eighth-grader of such spectacular potential that one of the Detroit TV stations sent a reporter out with a film crew to do a profile on him that aired on their extended late Sunday night show. This might be normal stuff in Kentucky or Indiana, but not in Detroit. If a TV station in Detroit, where high school sports penetrates the social fabric only superficially, is spending time on an eighth-grade kid, you know he’s a once-a-generation player.

And Chris Webber was all of that.

Fast forward a few months to July or August. I’m in my office at The Oakland Press on a slow night and place a call to Kurt Keener, then and still the basketball coach at Detroit Country Day. I’d heard Webber was considering DCD among a few other schools and asked Keener about him. Come on over to our gym tonight, he said, he’s playing here in a pickup game and will be enrolling in the fall.

Webber was breathtaking. He’d turned 14 between the time of that TV special and that summer pickup game and he struck me as a young James Worthy - long and sinewy and spellbinding. He didn’t have Worthy’s feathery jump shot, but he had hands even Worthy would envy - one of the all-time greatest pair of hands in basketball, as it would turn out - and jaw-dropping explosion off the floor that not a handful of NBA big men in history possessed. I’ve never seen a guy dunk so fast and so ferociously that you’re not even sure the ball went through the hoop, though Jason Maxiell does a pretty good approximation of a young Webber dunking.

I’ve seen every great Michigan high school basketball player over the last 30 years - Magic Johnson, Trent Tucker, Dan Majerle, Matt Steigenga, Steve Smith, B.J. Armstrong, Antoine Joubert, Glen Rice, Mark Macon, Jalen Rose, Terry Mills, Derrick Coleman, Jason Richardson, Kelvin Torbert, Marcus Taylor, et al - and Webber was clearly the one with the most identifiable set of NBA skills at an early age. Trust me, if the NBA floodgates had been open to high school kids in the early ’90s, the Fab Five never would have happened.

Those hands and that explosion made Webber a force that could have - should have - left a greater impact on the NBA than his numbers, which are Hall of Fame-worthy on the face of it: 21.6 points, 10.1 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game.

It remains to be seen if the paths of Chris Webber and the Pistons will cross, though it appeared headed in that direction Thursday when the 76ers completed their buyout of the 14-year veteran’s contract and waived him. Webber has let it be known that he’s seriously considering offers from five teams of the 17 he says contacted him within hours of the buyout news leaking. Those five are Detroit and Miami in the East and San Antonio, Dallas and the Los Angeles Lakers in the West.

Webber flirted with the Pistons once before. It was the summer of 2001 when he came up on free agency after his eighth season. Joe Dumars had just gotten through his first season as president of the Pistons and had a roster desperately in need of talent everywhere, but especially up front. Ben Wallace was the anchor of the frontcourt, but the Pistons had virtually no scoring threat beyond Corliss Williamson, an undersized power player fine for a niche role but not a desired No. 1 option. Webber would have been the perfect complement to Big Ben and Big Nasty.

But Webber couldn’t come to Detroit then and Dumars knew it. The whole Ed Martin thing was still playing out. Webber would have been subjected to withering scrutiny in his hometown where a lot of Michigan fans - many of whom also happen to be Pistons fans - were turning deeply resentful of the black shadow the Fab Five era continued to cast on Old Blue. Dumars did Webber - who didn’t want to be perceived as snubbing the Pistons - a favor by allowing himself to be seen publicly courting a player he knew he could not land.

Times change. The Fab Five furor has ebbed. It would be OK for Webber to come home and finish his career. Maybe even better than OK. Help the Pistons win an NBA title and Pistons fans - many of whom also happen to be Michigan fans - will soften their stance on the Fab Five. Webber often talks wistfully of those days. He’s banished from association with Michigan by the NCAA for now, but the sanction runs out in 2013. You get the sense he’d love to be embraced again by Michigan one day, and it certainly couldn’t hurt if he had an NBA title up the road with the Pistons on his resume.

Which begs the question: Can Chris Webber still help the Pistons win an NBA title?

Well, a year ago he averaged 20.2 points and 9.9 rebounds - right at his career numbers. He does not have the mobility he once did, so he’s not a defensive plus any longer. But he’s still 6-foot-10, he’s still a solid 245 pounds and he still has an imposing reach. His knees have deteriorated but his touch has not. He won’t remind anyone of Ben Wallace, but given the paucity of interior scorers in the NBA, you sure wouldn’t pass on him because of his concerns over his defense.

But you’d be getting him for what he provides on the other end. If he’s healthy - or as fully healthy as a 33-year-old with a considerable medical history can be - then Webber is still a marvelously gifted player, crafty around the basket, a very good passer and dangerous from the high post. With Rasheed Wallace’s health and passion waxing and waning and Antonio McDyess still struggling to find himself, the chance to add a multifaceted big man would be irresistible in any season.

But especially this season. The East remains anyone’s for the taking. Take Webber out of the dire situation that existed in Philadelphia and put him on a contender and it’s next to certain that you’ll get his very best for the next five months. A motivated Webber could easily provide separation between the contender that gets him and the pack

With virtually no financial risk, you’d have to look hard to find a downside to adding a guy one year removed from 20-and-10 status. Twenty years later, Chris Webber remains as intriguing as that eighth-grade kid that compelled a Detroit TV station to dispatch a reporter and a film crew.