From the Archives: A Ben Wallace Feature Article
ESPN.com
Jul 5, 2006, 02:35 PM ET
The thought of Ben Wallace in a Chicago uniform makes me think he's following a little in the footsteps of his mentor, former Bull Charles Oakley.
I wrote an article about him for HOOP in 2003. His relationship with Oakley, the importance of his deceased mother, and his central role in the making of a championship team are all covered. Keep reading for the full story.
Blue Collar Ben
The easy way to become an NBA superstar is to score a lot of points.
Detroit’s Ben Wallace has never done things the easy way.
by Henry Abbott
Ben Wallace does not do flashy things. He does not make game winning shots. In seven years he has made just two three-pointers. Even his dunks tend towards the straightforward. About the only thing he does regularly to draw attention to himself is to unleash the eight-inch afro that too often hides in tightly-packed cornrows. Yet he can hardly set foot in an NBA arena without finding flocks of fans in his jersey, trademark headband and full-on afro wig.
Hardly a play has been called for him in seven years and his lifetime scoring average is under six points per game, yet Wallace has become a bona fide superstar. “It is staggering, but somehow Ben Wallace has managed to make himself famous just by doing the blue collar things like rebounding, playing defense and blocking shots,” says Pistons Vice President John Hammond. “I can’t think of another player that has done that.”
A drastically undersized but ridiculously strong forward/center who has been generously listed at various times in his career as 6-8 or 6-9, the 29-year-old Wallace is in pursuit if his third consecutive rebounding title and defensive player of the year awards. “No matter what sport you are talking about, everyone always says that defense wins championships,” says Hammond. “In baseball, that’s pitching. In hockey, that’s a great goalie. In basketball, that’s Ben.”
Wallace’s ex-teammate Jerry Stackhouse says that is more than enough to make Wallace a star. “I’ve played with a lot of great players: Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, Grant Hill,” says the Wizards guard. “Ben Wallace’s name belongs in that list too, but for some reason people don’t think of him as the kind of player whose name belongs on the marquee. I don’t understand why. He belongs way up at the top.”
Two years ago, Mo-Town metamorphosed from a 32-50 team into a 50-32 team. Practically the whole roster was playing their best ball: Jerry Stackhouse was rejuvenated, Cliff Robinson was making huge plays, Michael Curry was a rock, Jon Barry and Dana Barros were shaking things up.
Rodney White’s future was bright. Their rookie coach, Rick Carlisle, earned Coach of the Year.
A year later, they finished first in the East and played their way to the Eastern Conference Finals. This year they could be better still, even though every single one of the key contributors mentioned above—Stackhouse, Robinson, Curry, Barry, Barros, White and even Coach Carlisle—is gone.
Four players and no coaches remain from two years ago, but Detroit remains an eastern power, with a deep and young roster that’s built to improve for the foreseeable future. “It really hasn't been my intention to overhaul for the sake of doing it,” explains team President Joe Dumars. “I've just tried to make whatever moves were necessary to keep us on top.”
One of his main goals has been to seek out players with character similar to #3. “This team has been built in the image of Ben, for sure.” he says. “We're hard working and we don't complain. Everything we do starts with him. Having Ben is a great luxury and we flat out love him in Detroit.”
In basketball, adulation, pride and big contracts flow in the direction of scorers, but any coach can tell you when it comes to winning, there is nothing like a good rebound. In a game where most teams make a similar percentage of their shots, the team that gets more rebounds gets the advantage of shooting more. The effect on victories is well documented—according to analysts, the better rebounding team wins three out of five games.
Wallace has made a career of it. He has been the league’s premier rebounder for the last two years, easily leading the league in rebounds per game. Last season, he grabbed 15.4, two more per game than any other player. Only a half dozen players even averaged more than ten.
On a court filled with ten of the world’s most enormous and athletic men, it’s ridiculous to even consider that one of them might get all the rebounds, but watching Wallace play, it’s clear that’s precisely what he has in mind. He is a relentless one man wrecking crew, enthusiastically launching his body into frightful mid-air collisions with the thick wall of taller opponents gathered around the basket. That in itself is remarkable, but what’s even more impressive is that he does this every single chance he gets—several times on the same play and all game long. For opponents, trying to stop Wallace can be like trying to stop the waves.
Wallace says his philosophy about rebounding comes largely from the veteran Charles Oakley, who has served as a mentor to Wallace since his high school days. “Whenever I played against Oak,” says Wallace, “he told me that any rebound out there, if he isn’t getting it, then I should be getting it.“
When little Ben was born to Sadie Wallace in 1974, she knew what to do. Already a single parent to nine children (she would stop at eleven), she instilled a strong core of values, cantered around the idea that life was loaded with hard work and that was OK.
To this day, Wallace can rattle off dozens of adages, sayings and ideas that come from Sadie, like: “good things come to those who wait,” “it’s easier to appreciate things you earn than things you are given,” and “keep working hard and hope good things happen.” Wallace took them to heart and bailed hay, cut hair and mowed grass to help make ends meet throughout his childhood.
He also listened to his sports-minded uncle, who advised him to go on training runs around his hometown of White Hall, Alabama, starting at about seven years old. Sadie didn’t share Ben’s love of sports, but her love of Ben was reason enough for her to watch from the stands as he grew to become an all-state athlete in football, baseball and basketball, as well as a top performer on the track.
Charles Oakley, a New York Knick at the time, held a basketball camp in nearby Livingston towards the end of Wallace’s senior year. For some reason, (“I think he was surprised by my determination” Wallace says) Oakley challenged the high-schooler to a game of one-on-one, which the humble Wallace sheepishly confesses to winning.
Oakley was impressed, and inspired to take Wallace under his wing. Wallace credits Oakley with shaping him into a two time defensive player of the year. “Growing up,” says Wallace, “I wanted to jump like Mike, dribble like Zeke and shoot like Bird. Not a whole lot of that happened for me. But Charles Oakley told me what to do instead.”
Oakley steered Wallace to Cuyahoga Community College, near Oakley’s childhood home in Cleveland, Ohio. As a sophomore, he averaged 24 points, 17 rebounds and seven blocks per game. When his two years there were complete, Oakley helped Wallace transfer to his own alma mater, Virginia Union.
Wallace’s dedication to working out quickly became obvious to the coaching staff, who scrambled to buy more weights for the weight room because, they swear, he was bench pressing every weight in the house. Wallace led the team to the Division II Final Four and, just like Oakley, earned himself a place on the second division’s first-team All-America squad.
Oakley left Virginia Union as the ninth overall pick. Wallace wasn’t drafted at all. After miserable stints trying to catch on with the Celtics and an Italian team, he moved on to plan B: to go to law school to learn how to prosecute criminals.
He didn’t get to try for long. The Washington Bullets—now the Wizards—called in the fall of 1996 to invite invited Wallace to work out with the team. (To this day he vows law school and a career as a prosecutor are still in his future.)
He squeaked onto the roster as the 12th man, and earned respect for his hard work in practice. He only played in 34 games, but none of the three men that held the position of head coach in Washington that year could bring themselves to cut the rookie who averaged just 1 point and 2 rebounds per game. There was just something about how fantastically serious and hard-working his approach to the game was.
Over the next two seasons he gradually earned enough playing time to impress executives from the Orlando Magic. They traded center Isaac Austin, who was coming off an impressive year, for a package of players that included Wallace. He has been a starter ever since.
In the summer of 2000, Orlando won what seemed to be one of the most potent free agent sweepstakes of all time, by convincing Detroit’s Grant Hill to sign with the Magic. At the time, Hill was a five-time All-Star at just 27 years old and he was averaging 26 points, seven rebounds and five assists per game while entering the prime of his career. Many considered Hill to be the finest player in the NBA.
Once it was clear that the Pistons would lose Hill without compensation, Detroit reluctantly agreed to actually ship Hill to the Magic in a lop-sided trade. The arrangement let Detroit get something in exchange for their star, while alleviating some salary cap and playing time issues for Orlando. The Magic dangled two unproven players who were each thought to be about four inches too short to shine at their respective positions: 5-10 guard Chucky Atkins and Wallace, who despite starting all season had averaged only about five points and eight rebounds per game. In no position to demand more, Detroit agreed.
With barely a year of front-office experience separating him from his playing days, Joe Dumars had been named president of the Pistons a few weeks earlier. Losing Hill was not an auspicious beginning to his tenure.
“Anyone who tells you that they knew Ben Wallace was going to turn into this kind of player is a liar,” says Hammond.
“I expected Ben to be very good when he came to us from Orlando,” says Dumars. “He turned out to be great.” In Wallace’s first year in Detroit, he became the first player ever to lead that team in rebounds, blocks and steals in the same year and he became the first Piston since Dennis Rodman to grab more than 1,000 rebounds in a season.
Off the court, Wallace’s special work ethic became obvious to the whole organization. “There is no one in the league that's more of a warrior than him,” says Dumars. “He brings an intensity that's second to none and he brings a presence that's infectious.”
In the 2001-2002 season, the Pistons hired a new coaching staff, that decided to use Wallace as the centerpiece of a helping defensive system. Assistant coach Kevin O’Neill (now head coach of the Toronto Raptors) designed a system that let Wallace leave his man to block shots and rebound, knowing a teammate would pick up his man.
The results are a modern day NBA legend: Wallace become one of only four players to lead the entire league in rebounding and shot-blocking. He is by far the shortest—the others were 7-2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 6-11 Bill Walton and 7-0 Hakeem Olajuwon. Thanks in large part to his efforts, the Pistons rejoined the League’s elite. Wallace was rewarded with spots on the All-Star and national teams, as well as 116 of 120 possible votes for the defensive player of the year title.
“I work hard, I don’t complain,” explains Wallace. “I thought I could be better than a lot of guys. I had goals I wanted to reach. I didn’t want to be just an average player.” All the same, even Wallace has been a little taken aback at how well everything has gone. “I’d be lying if I said I expected it.”
Meanwhile, Hill has been the victim of a series of injuries and surgeries and has hardly played since he arrived in Orlando. History has been revised, such that in Detroit the summer of 2000 is seen as a time when the Pistons gained a franchise player, rather than lost one.
Off the court, Wallace decided that his new found success was reason to ramp up his ongoing efforts to buy Sadie a house. In 2002, she finally agreed to move out of the house she had lived in his whole life, provided her new custom house could be built across the street. She hardly got to enjoy the luxury, however, because on February 1, 2003, she collapsed in the grocery store and died shortly thereafter. She was 68. Ben was crushed.
“She is one of those people that doesn’t care about fame and fortune,” Wallace said shortly before her death. “She wakes up and has her regular routine and that’s what makes her happy. Growing up, she taught us to appreciate the things we have, instead of worrying about what we don’t have.”
A few days after her passing, Wallace was scheduled to play in the All-Star game. If he did, he would become the first undrafted player ever to have the honor of starting in that game after being selected by fans.
After satisfying himself that Sadie would have wanted him to play, Wallace kept his date with the history books in Atlanta. Knowing he was mourning, a reporter asked if Wallace intended to do anything special to honor of his mother. Wallace replied that he was dedicating the rest of his career, and his life, to her.
It proved to be a turning point. At that point, in the middle of last season, Wallace was averaging nearly 14.5 rebounds per game, which is a remarkable number. (The season before Wallace had led the league with an average of 13, which also happens to be roughly Dennis Rodman’s career average.) After Sadie’s death in February, Wallace went on to average 16.9 over the final 29 games.
“Knowing how important his family is,” says Hammond, “it would not surprise me one bit if his mother’s passing played a major role in Ben’s incredible finish last season.” During one torrid stretch of eight games he averaged more than 21 rebounds per game, for which he was named the league’s player of the week. (Just in the month of March, Wallace grabbed more rebounds than his ex-teammate Stackhouse got all season.)
With a revamped roster and a new coach in Larry Brown, there is every possibility that we have not seen the best of Wallace yet. “Now he is playing on a roster with four players who are seven-feet tall, which means he won’t have to spend so much time attached to the opposing team’s center,” says Hammond. “That frees him up to get more rebounds and blocks.”
And should he ever reach a ceiling in the number of rebounds and blocks he can grab, there is always scoring to think about. “For the last five years, all my coaches have said they were going to put plays in for me, get me to shoot more,” he says. This year, Coach Brown has flirted with the notion and Wallace is ready to make it a regular thing. “Scoring isn’t anything but a different challenge. I’m willing to take that challenge.”
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