OT: Pistons great Chauncey Billups (Mr. Big Shot) selected to Hall of Fame!!!
Did not see this topic, so here it is:
Congratulations Mr. Big Shot. Thanks for the NBA title and all the years before and after the championship. That streak of 5 consecutive NBA Conference Championships was memorable.
This makes my heart happy! Along with the Four Roses small batch I've been drinking!
Hell yeah! That “five-game sweep” against the Lakers was one of the best sports moments of my life!
Shouldn't have been any doubt about him and Big Ben
If you wanted to write a sports movie about a plucky band of castoffs and underdogs that came together to take down the invincible champions, when you were done you'd basically have the 2003-2004 Detroit Pistons. It was a good year to be in college with lots of time to watch basketball games.
I was in Ann Arbor during that finals run and it was so much damn fun. At least until the the house across the street from us where like 10 football players lived burned down the night of the championship.
It was actually eleven guys! I had to look this up:
https://michigan.rivals.com/news/fire-claims-home-of-several-football-players
Frightening. Also, what an innocent, pre-NIL time. :) I'm guessing the average set-up is a little more luxurious these days.
Chauncey B-B-B-B-Billups!!
Wonderful!
The Pistons made it to six straight Eastern Conference Finals 02/03 through 07/08
I loved that team. Chauncey, Rip, Big Ben, Rasheed, Tayshaun.
"Ball don't lie."
'Sheeeed'
Yes sirrrrrrrr!
deeeeeeetroit basketballllll
Congrats to him! Can't count the amount of times I yelled at the tv for him to do something other than stand there dribbling the clock out at the end of a game, and then he totally proved me wrong by just nailing a 3 to win lol
Not a Chauncey highlight, but this was the oh no, oh no, oh no, oh yes...Mike Sainristil moment of that Detroit dynasty.
The block was clean.
Amazing moment. Also incredible to see that score! I just looked this up and this year the 76ers and Knicks combined for 152 points, which was the lowest total since 2016. That Pistons team allowed 80 points per game in the playoffs.
Congrats Big Shot Billups!! We were downtown watching the series clincher at my cousin’s old apartment, Fyfe Apartments on Adams & Woodward. We went outside afterwards and downtown was bonkers!
His bevy of Pistons epitomized team basketball. It once again was punished for playing too effectively on defense leading to my lack of interest in the current product.
He was a great captain. Kudos Sir.
I liked Chauncey and loved that team except for Sheed (he was that teams Bill Laimbeer, another embarrassment for Piston fans), but I am not sure Billups resume passes the smell test for the hall. I don't know his numbers or fancy stats, but he seems like a Lance Parrish - very good layer for a long time, had postseason success, all star games and silver bats, but just not HOF material.
I stopped watching the NBA after Chauncey got traded away from the Pistons. I don’t think I’ve watched a full game since. But those teams with him, Rip, Tayshaun, Sheed, and Ben were so much fun to watch. I’ll always remember Chauncey putting his defender on his hip at the top of the key, and either stepping back for a jumper or sliding under and drawing a foul.
To this day I cannot hear The Final Countdown without associating it with these Pistons teams and their legendary intro.
Mason!!!
1. Appreciate the Basketball Hall of Fame just celebrating everyone who had noteworthy careers instead of having asinine debates and excluding people based on whether they were dicks to the media like the BBHOF.
2. Still get irritated at least once a week they didn't just do the obvious thing and take Carmello. They get at least one more championship with an elite scorer surrounded by a team of defenders.
I'll get killed for this but the basketball hall of fame is the hall of very good(Mitch Richmond). Do I think Billups was excellent? Yes he had a small window of being very good. Should he in a hall of fame with the tip top talent? No. That hall just doesn't exist in basketball.
The championship build up and run of that team was a blast to follow. I loved watching them.
Pistons and "great" should never be in the same sentence.
