The 2004 Pistons were a championship-winning team, well-known for their elite defense. They had good defenders at every single position and frequently held teams to low-scoring nights.
Many people believe that those Pistons were one of the most elite defensive teams in NBA history. NBA analyst Kendrick Perkins once boldly claimed that they would be able to beat “any team” in any basketball era in a 7-game series, claiming that they’re arguably the best defensive team ever.
I strongly believe the 2004 Detroit Pistons would have beat ANY team in any ERA in a 7 game series! That is arguably the greatest defensive team in NBA History! Don’t mind me tho and Carry on…
Prior to their 2004 championship win, the Detroit Pistons had the No. 2 pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, infamously missing out on Carmelo Anthony and drafting Darko Milicic. There is no doubt that they could have won a few more championships had they drafted Anthony instead.
Chauncey Billups Thinks The Detroit Pistons Would Have Been Dominant In The East With Carmelo Anthony
In a recent video clip from the upcoming episode of the All The Smoke podcast, Chauncey Billups implied that the Detroit Pistons drafting Carmelo Anthony could have prevented LeBron James from ever taking over as the dominant force in the Eastern Conference. He noted that the two were close as rookies and that Carmelo Anthony would have been “raised right” from a basketball perspective on the Pistons.
We all thought we was taking Melo. We was on deck, we all was on board. We all thought Melo and Melo, we were excited. It was perfect. Obviously we had a team, we took Tayshaun Prince the year before, but Tay would have been the perfect sixth man, Swiss Army knife. He could do whatever.. We were perfectly built to have Melo.
I ask this a lot. If we got Melo, when was Bron ever going to take over? Now we in the same division… Now he (Carmelo Anthony) was going to get raised right in the game.
Obviously, Carmelo Anthony still turned out to be an elite scorer, and he has had many memorable seasons with both the Denver Nuggets and the New York Knicks. However, it is quite possible that he would have had more team success on the Detroit Pistons, and if he had won some championships, he would have been regarded as a much better player overall.
However, we cannot go back in time, and Carmelo Anthony being a part of the Detroit Pistons will always be a huge “what if”. While Anthony has had a fantastic career regardless, some people will always wonder about this hypothetical.
