Trades are an integral part of the professional sports industry. They can be used for a multitude of reasons. However, as in life, sometimes the best intentions yield the worst results. That was the case when Joe Dumars traded Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess to the Denver Nuggets for Allen Iverson only two games into the 2008-09 season.
Chauncey came to the Pistons in the summer of 2002 in free agency. Having been a journeyman to this point in his career, he was looking for a home. Signing for what seems like pennies today, five years and $25 million dollars, he had found the home he was looking for.
Coming to a team that had just won 50 games, 18 more than their previous season, Billups came to Detroit to assume the starting point guard position from Chucky Atkins. What Chauncey helped do with the Pistons is nothing short of amazing, though he had some help in the forms of Ben Wallace, Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and later Rasheed Wallace. The Pistons would finish with the same record for the second straight year but would never win less than 50 games while Billups was with the Pistons.
Losing in the Eastern Conference semifinals the year before Billups' arrival, the Pistons went to the Eastern Conference finals his first year in Detroit. The next year they would win it all once they added Rasheed. Billups himself would be named NBA finals MVP. Though they would get back to the finals the following year, the Pistons did not win a championship the next three years of Billups' tenure in Detroit.
That didn't matter. In a smart move, at the time, Dumars re-signed Billups to a five-year, $60 million dollar contract. This was still a bargain for what Billups provided to the Pistons. Dumars would also re-sign Hamilton to the same contract, trying to keep the band together. The team would make it back to the Eastern Conference finals for the sixth straight year, but lose to the Boston Celtics four games to two.
With the Pistons having committed more money ($65 million) than the cap that year ($58.7 million), Dumars was looking for a way to free up money and help make the team better. During the summer, rumors spread about the Nuggets and Pistons talking about making a deal. But then things broke off as the season got closer. However, those talks, as we know, would be revisited.
After winning their first two games, Dumars still felt the financial pressure and decided to make a trade for "cap" reasons. Not long before a game was supposed to start on Nov. 3, 2008 against the Charlotte Bobcats, the Pistons announced that they had traded Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess to the Denver Nuggets for Allen Iverson. Financially, I am not sure anyone can disagree with the move. But for basketball reasons, it made no sense.
The Pistons would win their next two games before Iverson ever joined the team. But then they would lose their next two and finish with a record of 39-43 and sneak into the playoffs where they would lose in the first round. That record was a 20 win drop from the previous season. There has only ever been one other season where the Pistons dropped 20 games from the previous year, that was the final year of Isaiah Thomas' and Bill Laimbeer's career, 1993-94. But the woes did not stop there even though Iverson only played one season in Detroit.
From the day Billups was traded through the end of the 2014-15 season, the Pistons have a winning percentage of 37.6-percent. Looking through all the seven years stretches of Pistons history, they have only had a lower winning percentage twice. Well, really, it is more of an eight-year stretch. From 1962-63 through 1968-69, the Pistons had a winning percentage of 37.5-percent and no winning seasons. From 1963-64 through 1969-70, the Pistons had a winning percentage of 36.9-percent and no winning seasons. So since Billups' trade, the Pistons have had their third worst seven-year stretch in their history.
For those who know sports, the Curse of the Bambino is in reference to the 86-year championship drought the Boston Red Sox faced after having sold Babe Ruth's contract. Though Billups was an amazing player, he was not to basketball what Babe Ruth was to baseball. However, he was to the Pistons what Babe Ruth was to the Red Sox. Without Big Shot, the Pistons have had some hard times, especially in trying to find a replacement point guard.
Let us know in the comments what you felt about the trade at the time. Do you remember where you were when you heard the news? Did you erase it from your memory?
Author's Note: Some time about three or four years ago, I pulled a miniature Michael Jordan Jersey from a mixed box of cards from K-Mart. That jersey would also have Jordan's autograph on the back of it. At the time, none had been sold. I was already planning a trip to Michigan and decided to go when Gibraltor was having a sports card show. While I had an offer online for $1,000, I wanted to see if I could fetch more in person. Unfortunately, our trip had left us low on cash and we had someone offer us cash and items for it and had to take it. My wife at the time decided to go and do the exchange as I was manning the booth we had. When she came back, we received $365 cash as well as a Red Wings hoodie for my wife, and a kid's Pistons jersey for my four-year-old son. Mind you, the only kid's jersey this guy had was an Iverson jersey. He still has it to this day, and loves to wear it because it's his only Pistons jersey (I need to change that), but he understands my distaste with Iverson.