What Mr. Bigshot meant to the Pistons
There’s a good reason yours truly constructed these two separate player lists … A [Dec 19, 2007] & B [Jan 30, 2008] … during the 2007-2008 NBA season.
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Billups leaving bigger impression: Pistons, fans now feeling guard’s loss
Here, he was Mr. Big Shot, the calming leader, but as the Pistons failed to reprise their championship, Billups’ postseason performance came under scrutiny. To be frank, the Pistons didn’t appear capable of winning it all as assembled, and some people even think Dumars waited too long to break them up, which is ridiculous.
At 32, with six terrific seasons here, Billups thinks they were broken up too soon, which is debatable.
“Yep, I do,” he said. “People said I’d gotten old, but I truly believe, if I hadn’t gotten hurt (hamstring), we’d have beaten Boston and won another championship.”
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13 months later … and, all things being equal … this corner is in complete agreement with Chauncey Billups’ interpretation of what actually transpired during the 2008 Eastern Conference Playoffs and still considers him to be one of the very best Point Guards in the NBA today.
Tags: Allen Iverson, Chauncey Billups, Flip Saunders, Joe Dumars, Michael Curry, Richard Hamilton