Former Piston Star Says Team Was Better Off Without Carmelo Anthony

One of the great NBA “What Ifs” is when the Detroit Pistons decided to draft Darko Milicic instead of Carmelo Anthony in the 2003 NBA Draft.

Darko was one of the most hyped European prospects of all time. He didn’t end up having a very successful NBA career, but the Pistons were enamored by his upside.

Carmelo, on the other hand, was an instant success. From his rookie season, it was clear that Carmelo was going to be great. He went on to have a long and successful Hall of Fame NBA career.

These two players' different paths have many wondering: What would have happened if the Pistons had drafted Melo instead of Darko?

One former Pistons star and 2004 NBA Champion believes the Pistons were actually better off, in the short term, with Darko. Ben Wallace said on 2BrightGuys:

"Melo would have wanted to play right away. It would have had the potential to disrupt the team chemistry. By drafting Darko Milicic, he was a guy that came in and said, 'I can't play on this team. I'm not ready to play on this team. Who am I going to play in front of? I'm not ready.' By him doing that and accepting his role, it allowed us to build, grow, and get stronger. And eventually win a championship… If we had drafted Melo, Tayshaun Prince would have never blossomed and become the type of player that he became. We won a championship off the back of the best block that I have ever seen in my life (Prince blocking Reggie Miller, GM 2 ECF), and I blocked a lot of shots. That's the type of grit and grind our team was."

This isn’t the usual perspective you hear about the Melo vs. Darko “what if.” While Carmelo is obviously much better and theoretically would have helped the team much more, there is always something to say about role and team chemistry.

Like all NBA “what ifs,” we will never know how things would have played out if the Pistons drafted Melo. What we do know is that the  2004 championship is probably worth losing out on having Carmelo.