Carmelo Anthony recently waxed about what would have happened had he been drafted by the Detroit Pistons back in 2003 instead of Darko Milicic, saying he would have had at least a couple of rings.

But former Pistons big man Ben Wallace sees it just a bit differently.

Wallace, who was a member of the 2004 Pistons championship team, weighed in on how he thinks the team would have done if it had Anthony, and let's just say he doesn't think Detroit would have been as successful (h/t ProBasketballTalk):

“If we would’ve drafted Carmelo, I honestly don’t think we would have ever won a championship. Melo wanted to play right away. It would have had the potential to disrupt the team chemistry,” Wallace said on the 120 Watts Podcast. “By drafting Darko (Milicic), he came in and said that he is not ready to play on this team. Who I am going to play in front of. I’m not ready, and by him doing that and accepting his role, it allowed us to build and grow and get stronger and eventually win a championship.”

Well that has to be a kick to the gut for Anthony.

Wallace added that if Anthony were on the roster, Tayshaun Prince wouldn't have had the opportunity to emerge, mentioning Prince's famous block on Reggie Miller in the Eastern Conference Finals of that Pistons title run.

While some may scoff at Wallace's statement, it has some merit.

That Pistons team was a defensive juggernaut that had fantastic chemistry and shared the ball. There is a chance that an isolation-heavy player like Anthony (who was never much of a defender) would have ruined that.

But we'll obviously never know for sure. Instead, the Pistons drafted Milicic and Melo went to the Denver Nuggets with the next pick.