A “What If” Moment (Piston fans preferred)

 as a piston fan…. everything mikey v just said is true…..

No. Larry Brown would have still been their coach. They were flat out not expected to win in 2004. The fact that they did blew my fragile little mind. Plus, I always say, if they had not drafted Darko, that Rasheed Wallace trade would not have happened. Rasheed was a MAJOR factor for them having won in 2004. If they had Wade or Melo, both would have been fantastic players for them, but neither plays the 4/5 spot like Rasheed.

Also, lets go back to the time, the players being thought of as plausible picks after LeBron were as follows: Darko and Melo. No one was talking about Dwyane Wade being the 2nd pick in the draft (if they were, never saw them say it on any public forum I knew of). People were surprised Wade went 5 (I was). Many thought he was "undersized" and he was a SG with a limited outside game.

I thought it was a great pick because Wade was a flat out winner who I believed would be better than whom many expected Miami to take, which was either Kirk Hinrich or TJ Ford (Do not remember Kaman being talked about as a major Heat option). But, 2003 was seen as a three player draft, with Bosh being the likely 4th than a pretty big drop off. Dwyane Wade turned out to be absolutely amazing, but he was not seen as the prospect that Darko or Melo was as of June 2003.

If the Pistons had not had Rasheed, maybe Darko would have been used very differently? Maybe they would have kept Mehmet Okur (who certainly would have gotten more post season PT with no Rasheed, though would not have been nearly as effective). Hindsight scenarios are fine, but I really don’t like when major factors are left out of them. People seem to think that Carmelo and Wade would have just been whoever they were on teams in which they have put up mega numbers. Had they been in Detroit, it would have been slightly different. The Pistons already had a SG and were grooming a SF. Chris Bosh would have made the most sense for a Sheed fill in and would have undoubtedly played more of a role than Darko.

But, want to know the funny thing? Joe Dumars does still have a job after drafting Darko. He got the pick from the previous GM doing an Otis Thorpe trade YEARS before hand. It was Top 1 protected in 2003 (meaning the only way Jerry West was getting a lotto pick was if he were going to be drafting LeBron James). They got the 2 pick and took a guy who appeared to have major upside and a mean streak. Psychological testing was apparently not a major part of the evaluation. Still, Darko looked legit, 7 footer and had about the same vert as Melo. He had done pretty well as a young kid playing pro in Europe.

Melo looked awesome, I am sure he would have done well in Detroit and probably made Tayshaun Prince expendable. But, remember how famously Larry Brown and Melo got along in the 2004 Olympics? Well, this guy would have been his rookie year coach. Melo could score, but his defense was even more for $hit than it had ever been. With a guy like Melo, would a team really be willing to give up a player to put Detroit over the top? I thought Sheed was a great pick-up, but had a hard time seeing it as a move that put a team over the top. Turns out, in 2004, it did. Now imagine this team being better than they were before adding Sheed. Do the Hawks still trade him for cap room? Have a hard time seeing that happen. Pistons fans may feel that they would have had a dynasty of championships rather than conference finals with Melo or Wade. To me, I am not so sure that would have been the case unless you are willing to leave a number of things out.

Aww man I thought that this was gonna be about the draft, but yeah everything mikey said is true. In fact Id like permission to copy that post and use it as ammunition against my fellow passionate but misguided Pistons fans whom I can’t seem to reach because I can’t seem to convey my meaning or organize my thoughts as concisely as this.

Yeh I agree and have always thought if we drafted Melo we would not have won a championship.

Championship teams are built on team work, defence and chemistry. Ball hog and defensive liability Melo would have upset the team chemistry. Prince was a very good player, almost bordeline all-star. There was no need to draft a SF

Yeah we drafted Darko and coulda drafted them other guys I doubt Melo would stayed long term. He ended up bolting Denver for a worse team cuz he wanted the bigger market. A better what if…what if Horry didn’t hit that 3..then would anyone regret drafting darko over Melo considering we would probably been back to back champions

 Joe dumars did an interview about 4-5 years ago and he said if he had to do it over again that he would have taken Bosh. He said he liked Melo’s talent but he liked Prince and and felt he was a better fit with the Pistons. I could understand that. He wanted to build a team that could defend and guess what Prince was good at?