http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/train...?columnist=sher
idan_chris&id=2614363

Updated: Oct. 6, 2006, 10:15 AM ET
Big Ben's dislike for Flip helped fuel his departure
By Chris Sheridan
ESPN Insider
Archive

DEERFIELD, Ill. -- First and foremost, it was the money that brought Ben
Wallace to the Chicago Bulls. They were offering a starting salary of
$16 million -- more than $4 million more than what the Detroit Pistons
were offering -- and the bottom line, we all know, is that money talks.


But there was another factor, too, one that Wallace had kept pent up
until now, that made his decision an easier one.

Carlos Osorio/AP Photo
A lot of fingers pointed at Flip at the end of the season.


He did not like coach Flip Saunders, not one bit. And the fury he felt
toward his former coach after sitting out the final 12 minutes of
Detroit's final playoff game last season stuck with him through June and
into July -- a month that began with Bulls general manager John Paxson
and coach Scott Skiles ringing his doorbell on the afternoon of the July
1, coming into his home and making a three-hour pitch to Wallace and his
then-pregnant wife, Chanda.


A considerable amount of trepidation was rattling around inside Paxson's
head that afternoon when he first walked in the door, but the feeling he
exited with three hours later was somewhat hopeful. "I didn't know how
realistic it was. I think all of us thought it would be very difficult
to get Ben out of Detroit, though we saw there might be a crack in the
door just from reading stuff," Paxson said.


There had been an episode in Orlando late in the season when Wallace
refused to re-enter a game, and then there was Game 6 in Miami and the
quotes from Wallace afterward that indicated all was not quite so
hunky-dory over on the other side of Lake Michigan.


"The bottom line is we had the money, and we sold him on Scott being a
no-nonsense guy who comes to work every day. We didn't have an agenda
other than that, but we thought maybe there was a part of Ben that said
maybe it's time to change teams one last time and see if I can't do
something great somewhere else. We saw there was something [in Detroit]
that he wasn't as thrilled about as he had been in the past, but I
honestly didn't think we had much of a shot," Paxson told Insider from
inside the second-floor office he inherited from predecessor Jerry
Krause [who an pseudononymous USENET poster named "Granville Waiters'
Ghost" will one day urinate on] overlooking the court at the Bulls'
suburban practice facility.


What the Bulls did have was a bevy of cap space, enabling them to offer
Wallace much, much more than the Pistons were willing to pay. The
starting salary of $16 million should end up being the most money
Wallace ever makes in an NBA season, as his contract decreases to $15.5
million next season, $14.5 million in 2008-09 and $14 million in '09-10.
Still, it all added up to $60 million, which was $8 million higher in
total dollars than the Pistons indicated they were willing to go.


In a league in which making money is the bottom line, the decision
started to become more and more of a no-brainer for Wallace the more he
discussed it -- even though he was the No. 1 fan favorite in Detroit, a
player whose name was called last in pregame introductions, a player who
embodied the work ethic that the Pistons had always maintained was one
of the main keys to their success, a player who might have even had his
number retired if he had finished his career in Motown.


"I weighed all the pros and cons. One thing that really made me
comfortable about coming here wasn't anything Pax or Scott did, it was
that those guys I played with in Detroit, great guys, great teammates
and great friends, it was like we were all in there negotiating
together," Wallace said. "My agent talked to Pax, then came back and
talked to me. And after we finished talking I hung up the phone and
called Chauncey, ran the scenario by him, called Rip, Rasheed, Lindsey,
Tayshaun, those guys. So it wasn't like I was making the decision on my
own. I talked to those guys, and they all told me we would love to be
selfish and tell you we need you to come back so we can make this run
again, but they said this seems like an ideal situation with a team that
reminded them of us when we won the championship. They said, 'It sounds
like the best situation for you, and we can't blame you if you take
it,'" Wallace said.

Duane Burleson/AP Photo
Leaving the Pistons was still a hard decision for Big Ben.

So Wallace took it, putting his six years in Detroit -- along with a
coach he had no use for -- in his rearview mirror.


He had been stewing over his benching in Game 6 in Miami, and he skipped
his exit interview with Saunders back in Auburn Hills, opting instead to
speak only with team president Joe Dumars.


"At that point in time, the frustration was still sitting heavy on me,
so there wasn't no need for me to have a conversation with Flip at all,"
Wallace recalled. "I thought the worst thing he can do to a player who's
been there and been in the fight with you all season was to put me on
that bench and force me to watch that whole fourth quarter and not have
an opportunity to get in there and see the action. That was the toughest
12 minutes I ever had to play -- or ever had to watch. It sticks with
me, it's still with me."


I interviewed Wallace that night in Miami after Game 6, concluding he
was more apt to leave than stay after hearing him say: "Everyone knows
where my heart is. It's in my chest." Wallace hinted at how livid he was
over being benched for the fourth quarter, but held his tongue for the
most part and never ripped Saunders by name.


Fast-forward to this past Wednesday evening following the Bulls'
nightcap of two-a-day practices, and Wallace finally decided to open up
to ESPN.com.


Did he like playing for Flip?


"No. I just didn't like the way we handled things," Wallace said. "We
got away from our bread and butter, and that's on the defensive end. I
hear him saying now that I'm gone he can open up his playbook. I laugh
at it. Everyone's looking for something, and for him to say that, he's
fishing for getting a reaction out of me. It's funny to me, real
comical. I never thought you could win when you've got five guys on the
floor looking for the ball and no one out there doing the little things.
So that's on him. If he feels like that, go ahead."


Wallace mentioned Jim Lynam, Doc Rivers, Rick Carlisle and Larry Brown
as the favorite coaches he has played for, going on to say Skiles
reminds him of Brown because he does not play favorites and sees himself
as a teacher at both ends of the floor.

[N.B.: Isn't that every coach he's played for in the pros? I think
except for Pitino...]


Saunders did not make the list.


"I have no relationship with him. He's coach and I'm a player, and
that's as far as it went. If you say your door is always open and we can
always talk about things and you'll be willing to listen, and when I
come to him to talk about something that's bothering me that I think is
hurting the team, if you don't do anything to change it, then that's the
last time I need to talk to you."


That time came early in the season when the Pistons were reeling off
wins and beginning to set their sights on making a run at 70 victories,
a number they'd eventually fall six wins short of.


"We weren't playing as hard as we could on defense. We had to grind it
out when we should have been up and comfortable, giving other guys a
chance to get some reps. But for the most part we had to fight. I just
told him the way we were playing defense then, we didn't have a whole
lot of defensive principles. We were just out there playing on natural
ability, and we needed to put some type of system in place we were going
to come out every night and use, instead of trying to feel our way
through it," Wallace said. "He said: 'OK, I understand what you said.'
But he never changed."


"Carlisle was cool. He's one of those coaches who said his door was open
and you went to talk to him, if he didn't believe in what you said, he'd
tell you and say, 'I'm not going to do it that way, it won't work.' You
can't do nothing but respect that," Wallace said. "And coach Brown
wasn't afraid to go out there and run a play for you, and if you did
well on it he was going to keep coming to you."


Saunders also spoke to Insider, taking issue with Wallace's recollection
of their meeting.

"We had opened 8-0 and we were just back after losing in Utah. We talked
more about what he was doing offensively," Saunders said. "As far as
Game 6, I'm probably as frustrated as him; we weren't scoring, and I was
trying to get some offensive firepower."

Saunders did not run many plays for Wallace, and his scoring average
sank from 9.7 points in his final season under Brown to 7.2 in his lone
season under Saunders. Wallace did pick up his fourth Defensive Player
of the Year award, but his rebounding average (11.3) dropped for the
third consecutive season, and his blocked shot average (2.21) fell for
the fourth straight year. Numbers such as those have caused many to say
the Bulls overpaid for a 32-year-old center already on the decline, but
while Paxson will allow that the Bulls did overspend (because they had
to), he feels the perception that Wallace is in decline will inspire his
big free-agent pickup.


Chicago is coming off its second straight first-round ouster in the
playoffs, but last season was a throwaway year after the Bulls decided
to trade Eddy Curry (and Antonio Davis) at the start of training camp,
sacrificing their only low-post scoring threats along with a respected
veteran whose leadership capabilities were not replaced. By bringing in
Wallace and P.J. Brown, two players whose leadership comes from setting
an example through their practice habits and game efforts, some of those
missing elements have been replenished.


When the Bulls open the season Halloween night in Miami, Wallace will be
back at the same locker where he sat so wounded and angry in June after
what turned out to be his final game in a Detroit uniform. But he'll be
wearing Bulls colors this time, red and black, and he'll be starting a
new chapter in a career that has taken him from being an undrafted
nobody to possibly becoming the biggest impact free agent since Steve
Nash left Dallas for Phoenix.


And when the final 12 minutes roll around, Wallace hopes Saunders is
watching somewhere on TV, taking note that Wallace will be spending this
fourth quarter on the floor instead of the bench.


"From here on out, I'm going to remember that 12 minutes on that bench,"
he said. "I had been there through thick and thin with those guys, and I
hated to watch my teammates out there put up a fight and there was
nothing I could do to help them. It was like the big brother scenario,
seeing someone pick on your little brother or sister and you can't do
nothing about it.


"It was a helpless feeling, man. Things were going the way they were
going, and there was nothing I could do to change it."


So Wallace decided to change what he could.


Mostly it was about the money. But it was also about Saunders.


And that, folks, is why Wallace is a Bull.


Chris Sheridan covers the NBA for ESPN Insider. To e-mail Chris, click
here.

Granville Waiters' Ghost wrote:

It's bizarro world Marbury vs. LB.

Capn'O wrote:

No, scratch that. Upon closer examination it's two fronts of the same
war!

Marbury has always claimed that Flip Saunders was his favorite coach.
Ben allies closely with Larry. Flip allows more freedom in and spends
more energy on his offensive schemes than defense. Marbury constantly
pines for such a system. Larry stresses team ball, defense, doing the
little things. Ben lists Saunders de-emphasis of these as the reasons
he wanted out.

And, of course, now that each coach/player pair are split up they are
all still taking jabs at each other (well, Larry Brown will again once
he does or doesn't get his money...).

In article <1160509909.412189.106670@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.c om>,
"Capn'O" <dan.zinder@gmail.com> wrote:



What...




I...




Why...




....

I think you're onto something. Something big. I won't say too much but
I've seen that movie Pi and I would look out for any overly friend
Hassids if I were you.

Capn'O wrote:

We could triangulate this feud if Nazr has any opinion of Isiah's
coaching relative to Flip's. Someone should ask him after Ramadan, when
he's not thinking about food so much.

Speaking of which, Bill Cartwright and Khalid El-Amin would also like
to apply for the feud. They can bring a conflict of principles between
crying after losing vs. binging on comfort foods after losing.