Wallace earns well-deserved HOF selection

A four-time Defensive Player of the Year award winner, Ben Wallace redefined what greatness looked like as folks learned to quickly to Fear the 'Fro and stay clear of his 'No Fly Zone'

It’s that time of year again when Springfield, Mass. becomes the basketball mecca with the latest incarnation of basketball luminaries taking their rightful place among the game’s all-time greats.

This year’s Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame class is yet another star-studded group full of players that I either grew up watching or had the fortune of covering in the NBA.

So finding a player to focus on, to be frank, is pretty damn easy for me.

But in my mind, who to focus on becomes a basketball-style, Highlander moment.

And for my money, it has to be Detroit legend Ben Wallace who helped lead the Pistons to an improbable NBA title in 2004 over the heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers.

There are those whose talents break the mold of what we’re accustomed to.

Then there’s Ben Wallace who redefined what greatness looked like during my time covering the Pistons for mlive.com and Booth Newspapers.

While some will point to Dennis Rodman as being the blueprint for Wallace’s game, I’m here to kill that fallacy right now!

As good as Rodman was, and he was an exceptional rebounder and defender, at no point in Rodman’s career was he considered his team’s leader.

Both Rodman and Wallace are deserving Hall of Famers, but that leadership component above all else is why I’ll always have Wallace a spot or two ahead of Rodman when it comes to all-time NBA great players.

With all due respect to Wallace’s ex-teammates Chauncey Billups who now coaches the Portland Trail Blazers and was Finals MVP in 2004, and Rip Hamilton whose mid-range game should at some point put him in the Hall of Fame conversation, Ben Wallace was the leader of that Pistons team that either got to the NBA Finals or Eastern Conference finals six years in a row (2003-2008) - a stretch no team has been able to match let alone exceed, since.

He brought skills to the game that no one else on the team, or in the NBA at that time, could deliver.

A career 5.7 points per game scorer, Ben Wallace wasn’t going to wow you with scoring stats. And he didn’t come from a blue-blood college basketball factory like the University of Kentucky or Duke University.

Instead, the White Hall, Ala. native went the junior college route with a pitstop at Cleveland’s Cuyahoga Community College that led to a layover at Division II Virginia Union where the 6-foot-7, 240-pound Wallace was more than happy to be on those long bus rides up and down the CIAA circuit, appreciative of the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he and his teammates would scarf down.

Such humble beginnings kept Wallace hungry for success, the kind of success that would come about as an unconventional, undrafted, undersized center.

For Wallace, being an undersized center only motivated him more to out-work opponents, the clearest path he saw to success.

But even after he established himself as an NBA star with ‘Fear the ‘Fro wigs and t-shirts popping up in Detroit as well as on the road, Wallace still played with a 10-day contract mindset.

That meant being an elite rebounder and defender all the time, as well as an exceptional shot-blocker which led to the creation of Wallace’s “No Fly Zone.”

Wallace’s ability to rebound, defend and block shots would be the foundation for him collecting four Defensive Player of the Year awards (2002-2003; 2005-2006) within a five-year window.

And it is that blue-collar approach to the game that won over fans wherever he played, and ultimately led him to what is the crowning moment of his basketball odyssey - a spot in the basketball Hall of Fame.

“To have that type of journey, to have it end the way it’s ending, it’s an awesome feeling,” Wallace told ESPN. “I have to sit back and think, was I in love with the journey; was I in love with the game, or was I in love with the struggle?”