For the Detroit Pistons, the NBA Draft Lottery 2004 was much different than that of a year ago. After all the Pistons won their game on that night in taking a 2-1 series lead in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Indiana Pacers, as opposed to last year when they lost on their way to being swept by the New Jersey Nets.
But the most glaring difference is the fact that Detroit was actually in the Lottery last year. It was a rare occurrence -- not seen since the '86 Celtics -- where a team still playing for a birth in the NBA Finals also had a legit shot at one of the top picks in the Draft.
In that sense, the Pistons were the envy of the entire league -- an already successful, young, defensive-oriented team with cap room to burn and the #2 overall pick in their pocket.
Now, a year later, the envy has turned into laughter in many NBA circles. Their prized draft pick, Darko Milicic, is an afterthought. He is best known as the "Human Victory Cigar," an almost circus-like sideshow as he only enters games in its final moments when the outcome has long since been decided.
Meanwhile, the player the Pistons passed on, Carmelo Anthony, had one of the best rookie seasons in recent memory for the Denver Nuggets. Naturally the comparisons to the 1984 Draft were inevitable. Would Detroit regret not taking Carmelo just as Portland regrets not drafting Michael Jordan? Would the names Darko Milicic and Sam Bowie be linked together in infamy?
Those questions will not be fully answered for years. But another one could be up for debate immediately: wouldn't the Pistons be the favorites to win it all this year if Anthony was suiting up for them?
It's a fair question, and even GM Joe Dumars recently admitted that he sometimes finds himself wondering about Melo. But when pressed further about whether he would still take Darko, knowing what he knows now, Dumars insisted that he would. Some would say that he just doesn't want to admit a mistake, others that he doesn't want to crush Milicic's confidence. But maybe this man is telling the truth. And if you take a closer look at his draft decision, you will realize that he is.
It is common knowledge that centers take a lot longer to develop than any other position. Thus it is obvious that Milicic, the youngest player in the league, will need a few years to get his feet wet. By all accounts he is on the right track. He has gotten better and better in practice throughout the course of this season and that steady improvement should continue in the next few years.
Larry Brown will see to that. And is there a better player out there to learn defense, rebounding, and toughness from than Big Ben Wallace?
As Darko matures, he will see a changing NBA landscape. Five years from now the two dominant big men in the game today, Shaquille O'Neal and Tim Duncan, will be 37 and 33, respectively. Yao Ming will be 28 and just entering his prime, but the one thing the three of those guys have in common is that they all reside in the Western Conference.
In the meantime, Darko will be just 23 and all alone in the East. For those Pacers fans out there, I refuse to include Jermaine O'Neal in this discussion because his body type is that of a typical power forward and his atrocious .434 regular season shooting percentage.
So Milicic will have a chance to dominate a conference, if not an entire league, for years. As for Anthony, he'll be battling night in and night out at the 2-3 position against some of the best athletes on the planet: LeBron, Kobe, T-Mac, Pierce, Iverson, Carter, Jefferson, and Wade. All these players besides Kobe play in the East.
The point is that had the Pistons drafted Anthony, they would have only been one of a number of teams in the East with a superstar at the 2-3 positions. But with Darko, they have a chance at being the only team in their Conference with a player that nobody else has an answer for.
Besides, Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince are both young enough, talented enough, and versatile enough to hold their own against just about anything that comes their way at the swing positions. If those two prove to somehow not be enough, more help will soon be on the way from overseas in the form of sweet shooting Argentine guard Carlos Delfino.
But, again, these things are years away from happening. The Detroit fans have more pressing issues to worry about: like trying to win three more games against the Los Angeles Lakers to win the 2004 NBA Championship.
There is no question that the "D" in Detroit currently stands for "Defense." This offseason, it will stand for "Decisions" (who to keep, Rasheed or Mehmet?), and eventually it will stand for "Delfino" (as in Carlos).
But the most important "D" will still prove to be "Darko." Larry Brown put it well earlier this year: "He thinks he's Toni Kucoc, but we want him to be Wilt Chamberlain."
Talk about shooting for the stars; but that is exactly the kind of expectations and pressure this kid will face in the coming years. Everything depends on just how much of a force he develops into.
So much so that he will be the lone factor in determining whether this era of Piston basketball will be remembered as "Dynasty" or "Disaster."
