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Chauncey Billups writes for The Players’ Tribune

By Duncan Smith

Feb 10, 2016; Auburn Hills, MI, USA; Chauncey Billups (right) shakes hands with television and radio play by play announcer George Blaha during the halftime retirement ceremony in the game between the Detroit Pistons and the Denver Nuggets at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Mandatory Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 10, 2016; Auburn Hills, MI, USA; Chauncey Billups (right) shakes hands with television and radio play by play announcer George Blaha during the halftime retirement ceremony in the game between the Detroit Pistons and the Denver Nuggets at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Mandatory Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports /
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Dear Young Chaunce,

We’re not coming back to L.A.

We’re not coming back to L.A.

We’re. Not. Coming. Back. To. L.A.

It’s June 8, 2004, about 11 p.m. in Los Angeles. You’ve just lost the most important game of your 28-year-old life. And you’re about to walk onto the Detroit Pistons team bus.

Chauncey Billups was right. The Detroit Pistons split the first two games on the road against the heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers, much like the Philadelphia 76ers did against those same Lakers did just a couple of years earlier.

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Those Pistons were different. They took the Lakers back to Detroit and ripped them to shreds, destroying them in the next three games at the Palace of Auburn Hills, obliterating the prohibitive favorites and decimating the Laker dynasty.

Chauncey Billups wrote a remarkable piece for the Players’ Tribune on Tuesday, diving into his early years in the NBA, going from lottery pick and future superstar to bust and journeyman in mere months. It was a letter to his younger self, reminding a Chauncey Billups in his early-to-late-20’s of what he would know if he could look into the future.

"They need you to calmly, sternly tell Coach Brown — bless him — to miss everyone with that Philly talk. To not even let him finish when he starts in, dejectedly, on, “When this happened last time.” To just cut him off (with love), and tell him, point blank: “Don’t care, L.B.” To make sure he understands — the whole team understands — that no one should care, at all, about what happened to the Sixers in ‘01. And that, when Coach Brown says, “last time” — nah. Nah. There was no last time.This is y’all’s first time. And this ain’t Philly.This is Detroit."

He explored his relationships with coaches Sam Mitchell, Larry Brown, Rick Pitino and Flip Saunders, and players like Terrell Brandon and Kevin Garnett, and he went into his relationships with the other members of the Best Five Alive–Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace and Ben Wallace.

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Every paragraph is going to pull at the heartstrings of any Pistons’ fan who has followed the organization since the Going to Work days, and it’s a wonderful trip down memory lane for pretty much every fan. Billups’ piece delivers, and it’s essential reading for any Piston fan.

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