Why Ben Wallace was Worth Every Penny

When Chicago signed Ben Wallace to a four-year, $60-million contract, quite a few people were skeptical. When Wallace had a rift with head coach Scott Skiles over a headband, people became more and more worried. When Wallace was producing below his average of the year before, people starting screaming about what a mistake the Bulls had made in signing him.

Slowly and quietly, those screams have died down to whispers. Soon they will be gone, because the Bulls are at least going to make it to the Eastern Conference Finals, and probably will go to the NBA Finals. And the reason for that is Ben Wallace. OK, one of the reasons for that is Ben Wallace. The young players on the Bulls (discounting the rookies) are generally playing well: Hinrich, Duhon, Nocioni, and especially Luol Deng.

As much as I believe in statistics, however, I still believe veteran experience counts for something we can't quite quantify. For instance, I believe Derek Fisher is helping the Jazz be a better team this year. That belief is not supported by his stats, but I believe his presence is helping Deron Williams progress faster than he would have otherwise, and we can see this impact in DWill's performance. As for Ben Wallace, he is having a large effect on the Bulls in both stats and experience, and I think both of these will help the Bulls in their playoff run.

The reason I bring this up is because of the Cavaliers - Bulls game last night. The Bulls won the game, helped immensely by a tremendous performance from Wallace. His line:

44 min, 6-8 FG, 2-2 FT, 19 reb, 5 ast, 2 stl, 7 blk, 1 turnover, 1 foul, 14 points

All in all he had a win score of 30.5, which would put this game in 4th place this year on raw win score. A fantastic game, one of the best of the year. And what is ESPN.com's headline? "LeBron's 29 not enough". They must have some kind of contract provision where they must mention LeBron James for every game he plays. That's the only explanation.

However, the lead does explain why the Bulls will go far into the playoffs, and the Cavaliers will not. Once again this year, LeBron is carrying this team. And you can't pull a team all the way to the Finals by yourself. James' "help" in this game consisted of Larry Hughes putting up a 9 for 26 shooting night (Win Score: 1.5) and a supporting cast in which no other player took more than 8 shots. That's not gonna win you a lot of games.

Now, Ben Wallace is obviously not going to perform this way every game. And LeBron's supporting cast will step up now and again. But I have a feeling in April and May we'll be seeing more games looking like this one than not. Wallace's playoff experience, along with his top-notch play, will push the Bulls to great things. Maybe the Cavaliers should have found a way to sign Wallace last summer. Things would have looked very different in the East.

This post has nothing to do with Win Score

I've got something I just need to talk about. I'm getting really tired of hearing people complain about the All-Star Game. You'd think our very existence was at risk, with the way they talk about it. Get a load of these comments:

Pat Forde (ESPN.com) - "College basketball does not trivialize its product with lounge acts or no-try, in-season All-Star games."

Jack McCallum (SI.com) - (Comparing the Vegas All-Star game to one played in Hell) "All in all, then, I give a slight advantage to HELL."

Henry Abbott (truehoop.com) - "This was a creampuff -- 99 percent air."

Jason Whitlock (aol.com) - "The game is a sloppy, boring, half-hearted mess."

Chris Sheridan (ESPN.com) - "It's just too bad that the Sin City setting didn't produce a game that was special."

Before I go on, let me point out that these are writers who I respect and read often, and I generally enjoy their thoughts and opinions. Also I must say that the Jason Whitlock article is powerful, and he has some good points about the dangerous road the NBA is heading down concerning the thug image.

I read all this, and kept my mouth shut, but couldn't do it anymore after listening to the local sports radio talking heads go on and on about the All-Star. Obviously I don't have their direct quotes.....has someone invented a TIVO for the radio?.....but the gist of it was in the vein of "When I was growing up, we watched basketball for the competition." and "I can't enjoy a game with no defense."

This went on for a full half-hour. And there are two words for this. Sports Snobbery. I can't stand to listen to another Sports Snob discuss how they can't enjoy a game without fierce competition. It's All-Star weekend, for the sake of St. Peter. The preliminary events included a race between a fat guy and an old guy, and Carrot Top driving the lane against Bow Wow.

These All-Stars are supposed to focus, run hard, and play good defense for 82 games a year, plus the playoffs. They are put on the all-star team as a reward for playing well. And yet we somehow believe they must play lock-down defense in the All-Star game?

Sports Snobs, climb down off of your pedestal and just enjoy All-Star weekend for what it is: a huge party. And enjoy watching the best players in the world have fun. Shaq's fancy dribbling? T-Mac telling Mehmet Okur to miss a free throw so he could put back a dunk? Good stuff. Enjoy it. And save your complaining for the playoffs.

A question...

I received a comment from a user that was interested in seeing a searchable, sortable database based on Win Score or (probably better) Wins Produced. Something that would be updated daily and allow users to see team and individual stats, sort players by position, total Wins Produced, WP48, etc. It would take some time to get ready, but I'd be happy to do it. I'd like to know if there is more interest out there and I'd like to hear any further ideas you have about this. Please leave comments on what sort of things you'd like to see.

For my next post I'm planning on returning to the top ten list and do some adjustments based on positions and per-minute averages.