Hall of Famer Reggie Miller’s final game was against the Detroit Pistons

Because of the infamous Palace brawl in November of 2004 between the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons, it’s easy to forget the incredibly classy moment between the two teams in the 2005 NBA playoffs.

With the Pistons up three games to two and seconds away from clinching the second round series in Indiana, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle took Reggie Miller out of the game for the final time so he could get one last standing ovation from the Indiana crowd. Pistons coach Larry Brown, who coached Miller with the Pacers, called a timeout to let the ovation continue and stood with Pistons players near halfcourt as they applauded Miller as well.

Miller enters the Hall of Fame this weekend. Dan Devine at Ball Don’t Lie has one of several fantastic reflections on Miller.

The All-Also Rans: The original human victory cigar

In case you haven’t noticed, although I’m sure you have, this has been a pretty quiet off-season for the Pistons since the draft. So, in the spirit of having something (anything) to write about, I’m going to try to help pass the time by profiling some of my favorite Pistons who never made much impact on the team despite the fact that I irrationally expected great things from them.

During the Detroit Pistons’ run to the to 2004 NBA title, seeing 12th man Darko Milicic get into a game was one of the most exciting subplots of any game.

As a rookie that season, Milicic had not yet earned the ‘one of the worst draft picks in history’ label he would be branded with down the line. Pistons veterans raved about his talent behind the scenes and fans were both excited about his potential and patient enough to wait for him to develop. After all, the team was already really good, there was little reason to not be content with the status quo. The Pistons would keep winning with their suffocating defense and at home games during blowouts, fans would start peppering Larry Brown with ‘we want Darko’ chats during the fourth quarter. Brown, ever stubborn, would invariably pretend like he didn’t hear the chants for at least a little while before finally giving in and letting the team have a glimpse. It became a great tradition that season, further enhanced by Rasheed Wallace and Rick Mahorn labeling Milicic ‘the human victory cigar.’

The good-naturedness of those moments inevitably wore off, however, because unlike most lovable end-of-the-bench guys Darko was … well … not all that lovable. He also had the burden of expectations — he wasn’t roster filler, he was the No. 2 pick in a historically good draft, selected before three likely Hall of Famers. It was untenable for Milicic to maintain that goofy role simply because the onslaught of expectations were about to come down on him.

The Pistons did have a more perfect incarnation of a human victory cigar several years earlier, however, and unlike Milicic, Scott Hastings was not miscast in that role.

Hastings was the 12th-ish man on the 1990 title team. He scored 42 points in 40 games that season and never reached double figures in 67 games as a Piston. Despite making little impact on the court, his personality made him a great fit on that team. He always displayed a funny, self-deprecating personality, was well-liked by media and elicited cheers from the home crowd when he’d finally get into a game the same way Milicic would during the 2004 title run.

The difference, however, is that Hastings didn’t have the baggage or expectations Milicic did. He was a second round draft pick who had bounced around on three different teams before ending up in Detroit. Hastings could’ve stayed in that end-of-bench role forever and still received good-natured cheers from fans who never expect him to do anything more than hustle around in garbage minutes as his team wins games.

I loved how excited the crowd would get about Milicic in 2003-04, but there was always just a tad bit of uneasiness about it — yeah, it was great watching a young player get minutes, but what if this is it? What if this awkward player who aggressively flails around the court is all he ever is? What if he’s not the star in the making his draft position asserts he should be? Those thoughts might not have dominated those moments, but I’m sure most fans had a doubt or two about Milicic creep in to what should’ve just been stress-free ends to blowout wins.

With Hastings, you could just watch and enjoy him in garbage time guilt-free, without worrying about what his future held.

Like Milicic, however, who the Pistons turned into Rodney Stuckey, the team also turned Hastings into a decent player (and a player who will show up later this week in the All-Also Rans) in Orlando Woolridge.

Now, Hastings is still quotable — just ask Jay Cutler — as a Denver Nuggets analyst and radio personality in Denver, displaying some of the same personality traits that made him a fun, albeit largely unimportant, element of a championship team.

Previously

• Gerald Glass and Isiah Thomas will always have one iconic connection
• The Pistons once employed two of ‘B-Ball’s Best Kept Secrets’ at the same time
• The Pistons and hometown reunions
• The Pistons had two chances at Randolph Childress
• The Pistons needed size, and Eric Montross had it
• A frontcourt of the future, complete with Lou Roe, all in one draft

The All-Also Rans: A frontcourt of the future, complete with Lou Roe, all from one draft

In case you haven’t noticed, although I’m sure you have, this has been a pretty quiet off-season for the Pistons since the draft. So, in the spirit of having something (anything) to write about, I’m going to try to help pass the time by profiling some of my favorite Pistons who never made much impact on the team despite the fact that I irrationally expected great things from them.

In the 1995 NBA Draft, the Pistons used all three of their draft picks that year to infuse some youth into their frontcourt, and at the time, there was reason to be excited about each pick.

First round pick Theo Ratliff, a relatively unknown skinny shot-blocker the Pistons took 18th overall out of Wyoming, was certainly a bit raw coming into the league, but his shot-blocking was an intriguing commodity for a Pistons team that hadn’t really had a legitimate rim protector since John Salley left town. Ratliff was in and out of then-coach Doug Collins’ doghouse as a rookie, but he did play in 75 games and 3.2 shots per 36 minutes, showing the potential that would eventually help make him an All-Star (though not in Detroit) and one of the top shot-blockers in the league during his era.

Plus, his athleticism, dunks and rattler sound effect whenever he came into the game or made a play helped make him an immediate crowd favorite.

Don Reid, who the Pistons selected 58th overall out of Georgetown, as the opposite of Ratliff. He was undersized, he went to a big college, he wasn’t particularly skilled in any one area, but he was also intelligent, well-coached and hard-working. He maximized his ability by working extremely hard, earning minutes and he even earned the trust of Collins, a coach who proved to be hesitant to play more mistake-prone young players. Reid started 46 games as a rookie for the Pistons. He wasn’t exciting or a crowd-pleaser like Ratliff, but as a starter on a team that exceeded expectations and won 46 games, Reid’s hustle was always appreciated.

Sandwiched in between those two players, however, was the real prize of that draft, at least to my naive eyes. Lou Roe, a chiseled forward out of UMass, fell to the Pistons with the first pick in the second round, 30th overall.

Roe was a key part of another of my favorite college teams. Coached by John Calipari and featuring players like Roe, Marcus Camby, Edgar Padilla, Donta Bright and Carmelo Travieso, those UMass squads were always exciting to watch. Roe averaged 14 points and 8 rebounds per game for his career at UMass. He was a possible first round pick had he declared for the draft after his junior year, when he averaged 18.6 points and 8.3 rebounds per game. His stats slipped a bit as a senior, plus questions about whether he could adjust to playing the small forward spot in the NBA, caused him to slip to the second round.

Unfortunately, those questions turned out to be legitimate ones. Roe, though a great college player, was a bit too small to guard NBA power forwards and he didn’t have the perimeter game to adjust offensively to being a small forward. He played in just 49 games as a Piston, starting to, and shot just 36 percent that season. He did have a couple of good moments — scoring 14 points with 9 rebounds in a loss to Orlando and getting 11 points and 4 rebounds in a loss to Utah — but the Pistons ultimately released him after the season. Roe played briefly in Golden State and then went on to a strong international career, playing in Spain, where he won a Spanish League MVP in 2001, Italy, Mexico, South Korea and Argentina. In the spring, UMass announced that Roe would join the men’s basketball coaching staff.

Previously

• Gerald Glass and Isiah Thomas will always have one iconic connection
• The Pistons once employed two of ‘B-Ball’s Best Kept Secrets’ at the same time
• The Pistons and hometown reunions
• The Pistons had two chances at Randolph Childress
• The Pistons needed size, and Eric Montross had it

The All-Also Rans: The Pistons needed size, and Eric Montross had it

In case you haven’t noticed, although I’m sure you have, this has been a pretty quiet off-season for the Pistons since the draft. So, in the spirit of having something (anything) to write about, I’m going to try to help pass the time by profiling some of my favorite Pistons who never made much impact on the team despite the fact that I irrationally expected great things from them.

Glancing back at the rosters during the bleak era of Pistons basketball between the Bad Boys’ championships and the resurgence of the Going To Work Pistons in the 2000s is often a great trip down memory lane, a chance to look at the names of some truly terrible NBA players who made brief stops in Auburn Hills as the team tried to forge out a new identity and entice Grant Hill to stick around forever because of the exciting opportunity to play with Jud Buechler.

One theme in that era always stuck out, though: the Pistons always needed quality bigs and always seemed to strike out in their quest. Terry Mills was fine if you like stretch fours who aren’t great defenders. Veteran Otis Thorpe was a decent stopgap until they had to trade him or risk that he’d murder then-coach Doug Collins. Although I’m quite fond of Brian Williams/Bison Dele, who we lost far, far too soon, his signing with the Pistons turned out to be a disaster. They struck out again in free agency when they added Christian Laettner. The Pistons got acquiring a good big man right when they drafted Theo Ratliff … unfortunately, that wasn’t apparent until they’d traded him to another team.

Those years of frustration, watching the Pistons try to apply every kind of fix imaginable to their frontcourt situation, led  me to do something drastic, something I’m a little ashamed to admit — I got genuinely, momentarily excited when the Pistons traded for Eric Montross.

The Pistons acquired Montross with Jerry Stackhouse in a trade with Philadelphia for Ratliff, who they were giving up on prematurely, and the useful Aaron McKie. I was disappointed to see Ratliff go, but Montross was a legitimate, big 7-footer. He was only 26 when the Pistons traded for him and, although he’d bounced around the league a bit, he was a former lottery pick, and a famous one at that after he led a pretty underwhelming (by UNC standards) collection of talent at North Carolina to a national championship against Michigan’s Fab Five.

Since averaging a solid 10 points on 53 percent shooting and 7 rebounds per game as a rookie with Boston, Montross’ production had fallen off a cliff, however. He was shooting just 39.5 percent with Philly before being shipped to the Pistons, atrocious for a guy who rarely ventured outside the paint. Despite his size, he was still pushed around often inside and he was certainly not the quickest big man by any stretch.

He was not much better with the Pistons even though he managed to hang around and play 167 games with the team in parts of four seasons. Amazingly, he didn’t score in double figures with the team for the first time until his fourth season with the team, when he finished with 13 points and 11 rebounds against Indiana. He only reached double figures in rebounding four times as a Piston. That seems incredible considering how little size they had up front at times, but he was just never able to solidify himself in the rotation.

Montross was certainly no fun to watch as a Piston and he did not provide any kind of solution to their recurring frontcourt issues. His Pistons tenure was not a complete loss, though — he and Jerome Williams were eventually traded to Toronto for Corliss Williamson. And, unless you count the Grant Hill-Ben Wallace/Chucky Atkins trade that wasn’t a trade since all the players were free agents who were going to be signed by the respective teams regardless of a sign-and-trade being worked out — the Montross/Williams for Williamson swap has a case for being the best trade Joe Dumars made his first year on the job as team president.

Previously

• Gerald Glass and Isiah Thomas will always have one iconic connection
• The Pistons once employed two of ‘B-Ball’s Best Kept Secrets’ at the same time
• The Pistons and hometown reunions
• The Pistons had two chances at Randolph Childress