A war of words between 2004 Detroit Pistons star Rasheed Wallace and current Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green has escalated in recent days, with each side making the case that their respective classic team would win in a seven-game series.
Green clapped back at Wallace recently saying that the Warriors would have ‘smacked y'all.' Pistons owner Tom Gores issued a statement after the team's ‘mutual' split with former General Manager Troy Weaver.
Up for debate is whether the vintage 2004 NBA Champion Detroit Pistons would beat one of Greens' best Warriors title teams in a seven-game series.
The 2017-2018 Golden State Warriors with NBA top 75 all-time player Kevin Durant are widely regarded as the best of Green's four championship teams. Here are five reasons why Wallace's 2003-2004 Pistons would defeat them in an NBA Finals series:
1. Defense-
The 2017 Golden State Warriors were an underrated defensive team, but the 2004 Pistons were a different animal entirely.
Ben Wallace is more than just a four-time Defensive Player of the Year: he was a walking turnover for the other team. The Hall-of-Fame forward/center Wallace is the only player in NBA history to record more blocks than personal fouls and more steals than turnovers in his career.
The Pistons could match up with the Warriors at every position, just like Rasheed Wallace said.
Chauncey Billups would have over 20 pounds of muscle on Stephen Curry and had the speed to keep pace. Klay Thompson vs. Richard Hamilton would be an exciting and relatively even matchup.
Tayshaun Prince vs. Durant would be the biggest wild card matchup of the series. Prince and Hamilton held Kobe Bryant to four games of 37 percent shooting or less in 2004 and Prince has a 7'2 wingspan to Durant's 7'5.
Rasheed Wallace's assertion that Green was ‘too small' would also apply to 2017-2018 Warriors center David West, his likely matchup on defense.
Bench-wise, the Pistons boasted the dynamic duo of Lindsey Hunter and Mike James, the most underrated defensive duo of all-time.
2. Coaching-
Steve Kerr is a pioneer but Larry Brown is widely regarded as one of the most adaptive and successful basketball coaches of all-time, at any level.
Brown led the Kansas Jayhawks to an NBA title in college and he would have led the Pistons to a second NBA title if he hadn't been busy flirting with other jobs during the 2005-2006 season that ended in a seven-game loss to the San Antonio Spurs.
Brown's defense-first, inside-outside strategy would trump Kerr's.
3. Cohesiveness-
The Warriors lived off of their ‘Strength in Numbers' moniker, but the Pistons were more united as a team.
All five Detroit starters played off of each other in countless ways on both sides of the ball, from creating steals and turnovers on defense to setting picks to backdoor cuts to post-ups, drives and dishes.
4. ‘Evil Rasheed'-
Rasheed Wallace has shared confident takes on the 2004 Pistons' ability to beat the Warriors because he knows what he's capable of. Wallace wasn't the greatest Piston of all-time or even one of the top ten power forwards of all-time.
What Pistons, Blazers and other NBA fans realize more than anyone is that Wallace was capable of transforming into an evil clone of himself at any given time. When upset (or spurred on by the Palace crowd), Wallace was arguably a top five player in the league who could score on anyone from centers to power forwards to small forwards to guards. Golden State would not have an answer for him in this particularly frenzied state.
5. The Pistons' Bench Mob-
Both teams have great benches, but the Pistons get a slight nod with James, Hunter, Corliss Williamson, and future All-Star Mehmet Okur leading the way. Okur was a stretch power forward-center who could score and rebound both inside and outside while Williamson was in excellent shape during the 2004 season and playing the best basketball of his career.
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