Perry A. Farrell

Detroit Free Press

Before the 2004 NBA Finals, coach Larry Brown told the Detroit Pistons he wanted to double team the Los Angeles Lakers’ Shaquille O’Neal, the biggest inside force in basketball at the time.

Ben Wallace wouldn’t hear of it.

“Other than the Afro, the thing I remember most about Ben was when we played in the Finals,” said Richard Hamilton, the tireless shooting guard on that team. “L.B. wanted to double team Shaq, and Ben said, ‘No, I’ll guard him head-up.”

Wallace was 6 feet 9, 240 pounds. O’Neal was 7-1, 325.

“Most guys would say, ‘Hey, give me some help down here so I won’t get in foul trouble,’ ” Hamilton said. “Ben was like, ‘No, L.B., I got him. Don’t come help. I’ll take him head-up.’ You don’t hear that from anybody.”

After the teams split the first two games of the series, the Pistons won the next three. Chauncey Billups was named MVP, but it was Wallace’s dirty work in the post that paved the way to the championship. Wallace had been named defensive player of the year twice in his career (and would be named twice more), and O’Neal wanted Wallace one-on-one.

He got his wish.

That warrior mentality and fierce competitiveness made Wallace one of the NBA’s most unique players at the time.

That’s why his No. 3 is rising to the rafters Saturday at the Palace.

“We’ll all be there — Rasheed (Wallace), Chauncey, myself,” Hamilton said. “We are all happy for him, and he deserves this. He embodied Detroit, and the fans loved him.

“Ben brought a dimension to the game that a lot of guys don’t want to do. He was a guy that did all the hard, gritty — defend, block shots, rebound. ... A lot of guys get caught up in the scoring, but Ben knew what he did great. He did it the best in the league.”

Arn Tellem was Wallace’s agent at the time. He’s now vice chairman of Palace Sports & Entertainment, the Pistons’ parent company.

For him the timing is perfect: One of his favorite all-time clients is being honored while he’s part of the organization.

“Ben had a profound effect on this organization,” Tellem said. “He is the ultimate warrior. They talk about the Bad Boys, but I think that team with Ben and Chauncey were the heart and soul. They went to six consecutive Eastern Conference finals. There was really no top-five franchise player on that team. They just competed so hard and played so well as a team.

“Ben embodied that spirit of sacrifice and doing whatever it took to win. When I talk to other players, everyone has such great respect for him, because it wasn’t about stats. It was about winning and playing tough and competitive. If you look over the history of the NBA over the last 35 years, that team to me is the most unique championship team of any NBA team.”

While the argument rages that there were no stars on that team, Hamilton said they were all stars who sacrificed for the good of each other.

“We thought we were all super, super stars,” Hamilton said.

The Pistons had a chance to repeat in 2005 but lost the pivotal Game 5 at home in overtime when Rasheed Wallace doubled Manu Ginoboli instead of staying with three-point killer Robert Horry. Horry drained a triple that sent the Spurs home with a 3-2 lead.

The Pistons won Game 6 in San Antonio but lost Game 7.

Ben never blamed Rasheed.

“We were built to win on the road,” he would say years later. “We still had a chance to win that series.”

Future Hall of Famer Tim Duncan was a big part of that series.

“I hated playing against him,” Duncan said Tuesday after the Spurs won at the Palace. “That’s the biggest compliment I have. He was a heck of a competitor. It’s just amazing what he did with his career. Going out there and making things happen for himself and his team. He was the ultimate team player. He’s just a great guy.”

In a blue-collar community, Wallace was the blue-collar player with the big Afro or cornrows. Children of all cultures and ages were spotted in the stands with Afro wigs.

He played nine seasons in Detroit — 2000-06 and 2009-12 — and averaged 11.1 rebounds, 6.6 points, 2.3 blocks, 1.5 assists and 1.4 steals per game. He averaged fewer than six field-goal attempts per game, but that wasn’t why he was on the floor.

“You have to be a strong, self-willed person to be able to go out there every night and say, ‘I know at the end of the day or in the morning, my name won’t be in the headlines for the defense I played,’ because the headlines were going to be covered with all the offensive guys,” said Grant Long, former Piston and current analyst for Fox Sports Detroit. “You have to understand what your value is, and you have to be committed to doing that job. That’s what Ben was. He understood, ‘Nope, I won’t get the headlines that Chauncey gets or Rasheed gets, but what I’m doing I’m doing alone.’ That itself stands out, because nobody else was doing it.

“He was selfless. When you have a guy not concerned about his offensive numbers, there’s no selfish motive for him. He’s saying, ‘I’m just going out there to do whatever it takes to win. Whether it is defense and rebounding, I’m going to try and be the best at it every night.’ ”

Most nights he was.

“What Ben did was take a unique set of gifts, and he developed them and made himself into an integral part of the best team in the NBA at the time,” said Greg Kelser, the Pistons’ television analyst. “Without him, obviously they don’t reach the pinnacle they reached. We used to always have the conversation about the Pistons being a five-man group and no superstar. But we tried to figure out the one player that they could truly ill afford to not have in the lineup. To me, it was Ben Wallace. He anchored the defense. He rebounded like crazy. He was driven. He pushed his teammates. He was the leader of that group.

“They all had their strong leadership qualities and characteristics, but he was the guy at the top.”

That’s where his number will be Saturday night.

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