Ben Wallace says the Pistons would’ve never won an NBA championship had they drafted Carmelo Anthony instead of Darko Milicic “If we would've drafted Carmelo, I honestly don't think we would’ve ever won a championship. Melo would've wanted to play right away. It would've had the potential to disrupt the team chemistry. By drafting Darko, Darko was the guy who 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?’” “By him accepting his role, it allowed us to build and grow, get stronger and stronger, and eventually win a championship. If he would've came in saying, ‘I want to play. I need to be playing.’ He would've called his agent. His agent would've been calling Joe [Dumars]. Darko would've been talking to the media. The media would've come and asked those crazy questions. Then we would've had to say something crazy. They would've taken it back to Darko. The whole divide and conquer” “If we would have drafted Melo, Tayshaun [Prince] would’ve never blossomed to be the type of player that he became. We won a championship off the back of the best block that I ever seen in my life. And I’ve blocked a lot of shots. That’s the type of grit and grind that that team was about”