Top 5 small forwards in Detroit Pistons history

Tayshaun Prince

Tayshaun Prince is often the forgotten member of the Pistons’ 2004 championship starting five.

He didn’t have the attitude of Rasheed Wallace, the powerful blocks of Ben Wallace, the clutch shots of Chauncey Billups or the offensive game of Richard Hamilton.

However, Prince was the glue holding the whole team together.

His stat line of 12.9 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game don’t tell you how impactful he was.

The dominant Pistons of the early to mid 2000s wouldn’t have been nearly as good without Prince’s lockdown defence.

At his defensive peak in 2003-2004, Prince was providing 4.6 defensive win shares, while in 2004-2005 he produced 9.4 total win shares.

As his career went on he also developed a handy offensive game, averaging 14 points on 46.4 per cent shooting from 2004 to 2011.

Of course, you can’t talk about Prince without bringing up his block on Reggie Miller in the final 30 seconds of game 2 in the 2004 Eastern Conference Finals against the Indiana Pacers.

It still blows my mind to this very day that Prince was able to somehow block that shot.