Closing the Loop

Money isn’t what carried Ben Wallace out of Detroit. Validation was. The Pistons offered him more money than the young man who came out of Virginia Union undrafted ever dared to dream he would earn in a lifetime, let alone over four years. But the Chicago Bulls offered him a contract that placed him near the top of the NBA pay scale and told him they valued him on a par with the greats of the NBA.

That appealed to Ben Wallace’s pride – and pride, more than the blacksmith’s arms or the quick-twitch muscles that allowed him to cover the court from sideline to sideline, is what got Ben Wallace to the NBA.

It had to hurt a man that prideful to hear boos in The Palace, a building where he not so long ago hoisted the NBA championship trophy over his head to thunderous applause from fans who adored him, fans who wore outrageous faux Afros and held up handmade “Fear the ’Fro” signs.

Now he’s back – or will be, when the contract signing becomes official sometime this week, in all likelihood – to almost close the loop on his legacy. Almost because he’s coming back to fill a different role than the one he vacated, and how he fills it as a mentor to a team whose average age without him is a mere 25 will give him a chance to not only restore his image – that’s accomplished the second he affixes his name to the contract – but burnish it even further.

Simply put, returning to the Pistons to finish his career, irrespective of the numbers he puts up from this point forward, establishes Wallace’s place among the greats in franchise history.

He’s giving up almost $3 million for that place in the pantheon, by the way, a sign of how much it means to him to have his name historically associated with the Pistons. He took a buyout of $10 million from Phoenix on a contract that called for him to earn $14 million next season – nobody gives up that kind of money in a buyout. He called Joe Dumars the day it happened, with Dumars in Las Vegas watching Summer League, and told him of his desire to come home.

The last three years have been kind to Big Ben’s bank account, but not so much to his psyche. He was happiest as a Piston. There were no hard feelings on either side when he left. Not only did Wallace keep in constant contact with the teammates to whom he will be inexorably linked – Rasheed Wallace, Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince – he kept in touch with Joe D, too, a sounding board for him during those early turbulent days in Chicago when he clashed with Scott Skiles and bore the brunt of the Bulls’ stumbling start from disappointed fans.

Dumars understood perfectly that Wallace had to leave for the Chicago offer. It was too good. Joe D has made a career, and built one of the NBA’s flagship franchises, by avoiding the knee-jerk temptation to overspend. He had a salary framework to consider, and a $15 million annual average for a Ben Wallace who was showing signs of slowing down by the time he hit free agency in 2006 would have broken it.

He comes back as a different player to a far different role. But, in fact, he’s closer to the player he was when he left than his role will be to the one he vacated with the Pistons. He was Cleveland’s No. 3 big man last season and contributing greatly to the team with the league’s best record before breaking his leg.

Here’s an interesting tidbit: The NBA league leader in plus/minus per 48 minutes – the difference in his team’s points vs. the opposition’s while he was on the floor, extrapolated to the full 48 minutes of a regulation game? Ben Wallace. The Cavs were 15.7 points per 48 minutes better with Big Ben on the floor. No. 3 was LeBron James.

Yeah, playing on a team that won most of its games, and won most of them by double-digits, boosted his numbers. But they boosted everybody’s numbers on that team. Wallace had to be doing something right to have the best numbers on the best team, didn’t he?

Dumars knows what makes Wallace tick, so you can safely assume he thought this out from all angles after Big Ben let him know of his desire to return. Joe D knows all about Wallace’s pride. He had to wonder if that pride would allow him to accept a diminished role.

That’s quite possibly one reason the signing didn’t happen immediately after the buyout. Both sides needed to be comfortable with the marriage. It wouldn’t do to reconcile only to be miserable with the terms of reconciliation.

So it’s safe to bet that the Wallace the Pistons are taking back is exactly what they need.

His no-excuses attitude should establish the perfect environment for an impressionable locker room. His indefatigable work ethic should set the perfect example for young vets like Charlie Villanueva and Chris Wilcox, never mind rookies Austin Daye, DaJuan Summers and Jonas Jerebko. His resume of achievement should be the perfect tonic for former teammates Hamilton and Prince, who suddenly became the only links to the six-year run of conference finals appearances after Joe D’s summer makeover.

He’ll go to camp as the No. 5 big man, but the gap between 5 and 2 isn’t so great that any of those other big men won’t be pushed to compete every day in practice and in games to keep their spot in the pecking order. He’s wonderful protection in case of injury, or the foul trouble that sometimes plagues Kwame Brown or Jason Maxiell. He has a history with John Kuester, both from their days with the 2004 championship team to the past season in Cleveland.

There aren’t a whole lot of win-win situations in the NBA, but this is one of them. The Pistons are adding a veteran who didn’t merely understand the ethos of the franchise but embodied it to a roster half-filled with players who’ve never pulled on the uniform. Ben Wallace is getting that rare chance to come home again and close the loop on a legacy that rightfully now includes him with the greats who’ve ever tugged a Pistons jersey over their shoulders.