First off, a huge congrats are in order for my guy Ben Wallace for being selected as part of the 2021 Basketball Hall of Fame Class. He’ll be inducted next year a long side other big names including Paul Pierce, Chris Bosh, & Chris Webber rounding out a very formidable class. To me and everyone else with at least half a brain, Ben Wallace was a shoo-in for the HOF. But there are a lot of idiots out there:

That whole thread is just embarrassing for this guy, who clearly doesn’t know shit about basketball.

When it comes to qualifying for the hall, for me it comes to two things; accolades and the impact you had on the game. Just going to get his accolades out of the way here because they already speak for themselves:

Now to the impact he had on the game. When you think of the history of the NBA, can you talk about it without mentioning the said player? And you can’t mention the history of the NBA without Big Ben. In the era of dynasties (Bulls, Lakers, Spurs) there’s the 2004 Detroit Pistons team that just told everyone to fuck off and he was the best player on that team. If you’re the best player on a Championship Team then you deserve to get in. Not only that but when you hand the Kobe/Shaq duo their first and only Finals loss plus make them divorce each other, I’d say that’s a pretty big part of NBA History. Also even though they weren’t able to pull it out in ’05 (I’m still haunted every day by ‘Sheed not covering Horry for the 3, but that’s neither here nor there) when you take the Spurs down to the wire with 7 games that’s another feat in themselves. The only Finals that the Spurs have lost was in 2013 against the Heat.

Ben Wallace embodied the blue-collar spirit of Detroit during a time when the city & community was struggling, and they were named the “Going To Work Pistons” for a reason. The Pistons made it to six consecutive Eastern Conference Finals from 03-08, which was my favorite time as a sports fan, and this is coming from a Yankees fan who witnessed the the 3 peat from 98-2000 and six World Series appearances in an 8 year span.

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