Billups Set To Have Jersey Retired, Reflects On 'Anomaly' Of 2004 Title Team
By Ashley Scoby
@AshleyScoby
As he watched Ben Wallace's jersey lift up into the Palace of Auburn Hills' rafters in January, Chauncey Billups got a preview for what his own night would look like.
Billups will have his jersey retired, too, at halftime of the Pistons' game Wednesday against the Nuggets (7:30 p.m.). The former point guard on the 2004 NBA champions' team – who had bounced around from franchise to franchise before finding a home in Detroit – is finally letting the gravity of the day sink in.
When he was a kid, Billups always fought with his cousin, an avid Michael Jordan fan. Billups, as much as he loved Jordan, would have rather watched former Pistons Joe Dumars and Isiah Thomas on the court. As these things tend to do, everything has come full circle.
"As I sit back and kind of think about it, it's unreal to me," he said. "I can think back to those days so vividly and now fast forward all these years, a day away from my jersey being retired with those guys, is unreal to me. It really is."
Before joining the Pistons in 2002, Billups had already had stints with four teams (Boston, Toronto, Denver and Minnesota) since entering the league in 1997. But after all the upheaval, Billups found something solid with the Pistons. He found a place where he could grow into the kind of player he'd always wanted to be.
At the time, Detroit had several pieces (including Wallace) that could fit together well, Billups thought. Adding himself into the mix was the perfect recipe for what was about to come in 2004 – an NBA championship.
"The whole outfit was just tailor-made for me, I thought," Billups said. "This team was already up and coming. This team wasn't rebuilding. … It was perfect. The timing was perfect. The opportunity was perfect. I was ready. I thought what I brought to the table, the team needed. It was a perfect match at the perfect time."
Billups went on to become NBA Finals MVP during that 2004 run, and averaged 16.5 points, 6.2 assists and 3.2 rebounds during his eight-year career in Detroit.
"Mr. Big Shot," as they dubbed him, was a piece to a puzzle that he says will likely never be replicated. And although he's the second player from that 2004 team to have his jersey retired this year, Billups says he hopes he won't be the last one from that era to see his number raised.
"It'll never happen how it happened for us. It was an anomaly, it really was," he said. "You talk about so many guys that have been thrown away in other situations, and when you usually get together guys like that, they're just so worried about making it themselves or making a name for themselves that they forget about the team. … Most of us, quite frankly, especially before we came here, weren't superstars that could carry a franchise. We weren't that guy, but collectively we found out that putting it together and doing it the right way, we could all be stars."