duncan228
02-05-2008, 04:56 PM
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/steve_aschburner/02/05/wallace.bulls/index.html
Big Ben's bad timing
Well-heeled Wallace the central focus of Bulls' woes
In a recent British survey, one in four respondents said Winston Churchill never existed, assuming him to be a fictitious character along with Florence Nightingale and Sir Walter Raleigh. And yet many of those surveyed believe that Sherlock Holmes, Eleanor Rigby and the Three Musketeers were real historical figures.
Makes me wonder where those Brits stand on the legend of Big Ben. As Sir Howard Mandel might say, real or not real? Because in Chicago, Big Ben Wallace is starting to seem more like a myth that drifted out of the Scottish, or rather Michigan, Highlands.
Ol' Nessie of Loch Ness seems more legit half the time than Wallace and his intended impact on the Chicago Bulls' ambitions as title contenders.
At 18-29, the Bulls aren't even worthy of a kids' bedtime story, much less myths or legends; the Little Engine That Could would be ashamed of them for their lack of drive and absence of goal-setting. It has been a hard half-season of "We don't think we can, we don't think we can,'' complicated by the firing of coach Scott Skiles, disruptive trade rumors about Kobe Bryant and futile contract talks involving forward Luol Deng and guard Ben Gordon.
Throughout, Wallace's underwhelming presence as Chicago's starting center and reluctant leader has kept the team and its fans focused on the Bulls' flaws rather than their strengths. On too many defeats and way too few victories, right from the start.
Just two weeks into the season, with Chicago's 1-6 record already tripping alarms, Hall of Famer and TV personality Charles Barkley pointed a big finger directly at Big Ben. "I love Ben Wallace,'' Barkley said. "But we go back to Denny Green: He is who we thought he is. He's a defender, he's a hard-working guy, and that fit well in Detroit. He made a terrible mistake going from Detroit to Chicago, because now, he doesn't have those four other guys. ... Sometimes you've got to take less money. He should have stayed in Detroit.''
Almost three months later, after a lifeless 83-67 loss in Minneapolis, Wallace told me: "Um, there's no one guy, when things happen like this, you can turn to. That's why you've got to come together as a team and fight your way through it.''
Let's be honest right up front that this does, in fact, have a lot to do with money. If Wallace were plugging along at a mid-level exception salary, if he were the Bulls' fourth- or fifth-highest-paid player, his acquisition would be viewed as a disappointment, an unfortunate decision.
But because he signed a four-year deal worth $60 million and draws the biggest check by far in the Chicago locker room -- $15.5 million this season, three times what Gordon makes, four times what Deng is playing for and No. 20 on a ranking of all NBA players -- Wallace is A Colossal Mistake, A Crippling Move and a Salary-Cap Disaster, rolled into one.
"Ben has a big target on his back, and it's the contract,'' coach Jim Boylan said. "The team has been struggling. So the first thing they look at is the coach. The second thing -- or maybe 1 and 1A -- is the player who's getting the most money.
"He doesn't seem to let it bother him. But we're all human beings. I'm sure there are moments when it gets him down. That's the business of basketball. When you get a big contract, big responsibilities come along with it.''
When Wallace signed with Chicago -- a signing that, at the time, few among the media or fans openly criticized -- he was expected to put starch in the young Bulls' shorts, while showing them the ways of a champion. After all, he had been voted NBA Defensive Player of the Year four times while helping the Pistons to five conference championship rounds, two Finals and one title.
Initially, he seemed to help. The Bulls' defensive average improved from 16th in 2005-06 (97.2 ppg) to sixth (93.8) and, though Wallace didn't emerge as a dominant personality in the locker room, Chicago went from 41-41 to 49-33, won a playoff series for the first time since the Michael Jordan era and appeared to be on track.
This season, though, the Bulls have backslid, slipping both in defensive scoring average (97.3) and shooting percentage (44.6 after 43.5 last season). Wallace's scoring average (4.6) is his lowest in 10 years, which mostly matters because of injuries to Deng and Gordon. His rebounding (8.7) and blocks (1.7) are his lowest in eight seasons, which matters far more.
The Pistons could afford Wallace's one-dimensionality because their other players handled the scoring. Rasheed Wallace, for all his tendencies to linger on the perimeter, could score from inside when needed. Antonio McDyess was a factor down low, too. With Chicago, already hungry for low-post offense when it signed him, Big Ben's presence exacerbates the need.
No wonder people are obsessed with the constellation of quality big men -- some they had, some they coveted -- that the Bulls let drift away: Eddy Curry, Tyson Chandler, Kevin Garnett, LaMarcus Aldridge, Pau Gasol.
The same goes for Wallace's lukewarm leadership. It was embarrassing when he got into a beef with rookie Joakim Noah last month, the new kid upset that Wallace was laughing on the bench late in a blowout loss to Orlando. It was telling, too, that Wallace wanted no part of any captaincy when Skiles asked for one; Kirk Hinrich has that role.
"That's not me,'' Wallace said. "Nothing you really say or do in this locker room changes what happens on that floor.''
In Detroit, the mystique of Big Ben -- the gong sound effects, the daily monitoring of his hair style ('fro or 'rows) -- looks a little inflated now, a way for the Pistons' veterans to give their middle man an identity and keep him doing the dirty work.
"Maybe what [the Bulls] didn't understand, here, I thought the guys he was playing with, he was a perfect fit,'' Detroit coach Flip Saunders said Monday. "Here it was more of a team effort.
"He was with such a veteran team and those guys all kind of came together. It was tough for him to go to such a young team, where they were learning to play together.''
Flunking, actually, compared to a year ago, both team and player. Skiles' silly headband squabble with Wallace last season led to forever friction that helped no one. Big Ben's unabashed friendship for his old Pistons pals -- in a Chicago market that is supposed to hate everything Detroit, and vice versa -- makes him look soft, even disloyal, to outsiders. His scattershooting from the foul line limits his value late in close games and, at 6-9 and now 33 years old, Wallace can't rely on sheer physical size to get the job done.
Forget, too, about any notion the Bulls had of sapping the Pistons' mojo by signing away their backbone; Detroit has topped Chicago in both stats and standings since Wallace left.
Look, the man remains a terrific NBA success story: Undrafted out of Virginia Union, a thrown-in to trades for Ike Austin and Grant Hill, then making himself into an All-Star (four times) and a folk hero in Detroit. Opposing coaches and players still respect him in words.
"Ben Wallace, I'm one of his biggest fans for his defense,'' Timberwolves forward-center Al Jefferson said. "He makes me work. He makes me think. ... He don't go for no fakes. He's just smart, and I'm glad I only face him twice a year.''
In deeds? Fact is, Jefferson totaled 46 points and 32 rebounds matched up with Wallace on consecutive nights last week. Who's glad he's only facing whom twice a year?
Despite it all, though, Wallace claims to have no regrets. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd do the same thing,'' he said, which at least is what he is supposed to say.
And all the criticism, second-guesses and cheap shots?
"Well, small things to a giant,'' he said. "I don't take anything in this game personally. If you do, this game will eat you alive.''
Big Ben's bad timing
Well-heeled Wallace the central focus of Bulls' woes
In a recent British survey, one in four respondents said Winston Churchill never existed, assuming him to be a fictitious character along with Florence Nightingale and Sir Walter Raleigh. And yet many of those surveyed believe that Sherlock Holmes, Eleanor Rigby and the Three Musketeers were real historical figures.
Makes me wonder where those Brits stand on the legend of Big Ben. As Sir Howard Mandel might say, real or not real? Because in Chicago, Big Ben Wallace is starting to seem more like a myth that drifted out of the Scottish, or rather Michigan, Highlands.
Ol' Nessie of Loch Ness seems more legit half the time than Wallace and his intended impact on the Chicago Bulls' ambitions as title contenders.
At 18-29, the Bulls aren't even worthy of a kids' bedtime story, much less myths or legends; the Little Engine That Could would be ashamed of them for their lack of drive and absence of goal-setting. It has been a hard half-season of "We don't think we can, we don't think we can,'' complicated by the firing of coach Scott Skiles, disruptive trade rumors about Kobe Bryant and futile contract talks involving forward Luol Deng and guard Ben Gordon.
Throughout, Wallace's underwhelming presence as Chicago's starting center and reluctant leader has kept the team and its fans focused on the Bulls' flaws rather than their strengths. On too many defeats and way too few victories, right from the start.
Just two weeks into the season, with Chicago's 1-6 record already tripping alarms, Hall of Famer and TV personality Charles Barkley pointed a big finger directly at Big Ben. "I love Ben Wallace,'' Barkley said. "But we go back to Denny Green: He is who we thought he is. He's a defender, he's a hard-working guy, and that fit well in Detroit. He made a terrible mistake going from Detroit to Chicago, because now, he doesn't have those four other guys. ... Sometimes you've got to take less money. He should have stayed in Detroit.''
Almost three months later, after a lifeless 83-67 loss in Minneapolis, Wallace told me: "Um, there's no one guy, when things happen like this, you can turn to. That's why you've got to come together as a team and fight your way through it.''
Let's be honest right up front that this does, in fact, have a lot to do with money. If Wallace were plugging along at a mid-level exception salary, if he were the Bulls' fourth- or fifth-highest-paid player, his acquisition would be viewed as a disappointment, an unfortunate decision.
But because he signed a four-year deal worth $60 million and draws the biggest check by far in the Chicago locker room -- $15.5 million this season, three times what Gordon makes, four times what Deng is playing for and No. 20 on a ranking of all NBA players -- Wallace is A Colossal Mistake, A Crippling Move and a Salary-Cap Disaster, rolled into one.
"Ben has a big target on his back, and it's the contract,'' coach Jim Boylan said. "The team has been struggling. So the first thing they look at is the coach. The second thing -- or maybe 1 and 1A -- is the player who's getting the most money.
"He doesn't seem to let it bother him. But we're all human beings. I'm sure there are moments when it gets him down. That's the business of basketball. When you get a big contract, big responsibilities come along with it.''
When Wallace signed with Chicago -- a signing that, at the time, few among the media or fans openly criticized -- he was expected to put starch in the young Bulls' shorts, while showing them the ways of a champion. After all, he had been voted NBA Defensive Player of the Year four times while helping the Pistons to five conference championship rounds, two Finals and one title.
Initially, he seemed to help. The Bulls' defensive average improved from 16th in 2005-06 (97.2 ppg) to sixth (93.8) and, though Wallace didn't emerge as a dominant personality in the locker room, Chicago went from 41-41 to 49-33, won a playoff series for the first time since the Michael Jordan era and appeared to be on track.
This season, though, the Bulls have backslid, slipping both in defensive scoring average (97.3) and shooting percentage (44.6 after 43.5 last season). Wallace's scoring average (4.6) is his lowest in 10 years, which mostly matters because of injuries to Deng and Gordon. His rebounding (8.7) and blocks (1.7) are his lowest in eight seasons, which matters far more.
The Pistons could afford Wallace's one-dimensionality because their other players handled the scoring. Rasheed Wallace, for all his tendencies to linger on the perimeter, could score from inside when needed. Antonio McDyess was a factor down low, too. With Chicago, already hungry for low-post offense when it signed him, Big Ben's presence exacerbates the need.
No wonder people are obsessed with the constellation of quality big men -- some they had, some they coveted -- that the Bulls let drift away: Eddy Curry, Tyson Chandler, Kevin Garnett, LaMarcus Aldridge, Pau Gasol.
The same goes for Wallace's lukewarm leadership. It was embarrassing when he got into a beef with rookie Joakim Noah last month, the new kid upset that Wallace was laughing on the bench late in a blowout loss to Orlando. It was telling, too, that Wallace wanted no part of any captaincy when Skiles asked for one; Kirk Hinrich has that role.
"That's not me,'' Wallace said. "Nothing you really say or do in this locker room changes what happens on that floor.''
In Detroit, the mystique of Big Ben -- the gong sound effects, the daily monitoring of his hair style ('fro or 'rows) -- looks a little inflated now, a way for the Pistons' veterans to give their middle man an identity and keep him doing the dirty work.
"Maybe what [the Bulls] didn't understand, here, I thought the guys he was playing with, he was a perfect fit,'' Detroit coach Flip Saunders said Monday. "Here it was more of a team effort.
"He was with such a veteran team and those guys all kind of came together. It was tough for him to go to such a young team, where they were learning to play together.''
Flunking, actually, compared to a year ago, both team and player. Skiles' silly headband squabble with Wallace last season led to forever friction that helped no one. Big Ben's unabashed friendship for his old Pistons pals -- in a Chicago market that is supposed to hate everything Detroit, and vice versa -- makes him look soft, even disloyal, to outsiders. His scattershooting from the foul line limits his value late in close games and, at 6-9 and now 33 years old, Wallace can't rely on sheer physical size to get the job done.
Forget, too, about any notion the Bulls had of sapping the Pistons' mojo by signing away their backbone; Detroit has topped Chicago in both stats and standings since Wallace left.
Look, the man remains a terrific NBA success story: Undrafted out of Virginia Union, a thrown-in to trades for Ike Austin and Grant Hill, then making himself into an All-Star (four times) and a folk hero in Detroit. Opposing coaches and players still respect him in words.
"Ben Wallace, I'm one of his biggest fans for his defense,'' Timberwolves forward-center Al Jefferson said. "He makes me work. He makes me think. ... He don't go for no fakes. He's just smart, and I'm glad I only face him twice a year.''
In deeds? Fact is, Jefferson totaled 46 points and 32 rebounds matched up with Wallace on consecutive nights last week. Who's glad he's only facing whom twice a year?
Despite it all, though, Wallace claims to have no regrets. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd do the same thing,'' he said, which at least is what he is supposed to say.
And all the criticism, second-guesses and cheap shots?
"Well, small things to a giant,'' he said. "I don't take anything in this game personally. If you do, this game will eat you alive.''