From the Archive

Ben Wallace

Height
6-9
Weight
240 lb
Jersey
#6
College
Virginia Union
Team
Detroit Pistons

From the Archive Editor · Goin' to Work

Big Ben. Four-time Defensive Player of the Year. The defining defensive center of his generation.

Ben Wallace foreground at the White House with the 2004 championship Pistons, January 2005.

Ben Wallace foreground at the White House with the 2004 NBA champion Pistons — January 31, 2005.

Photo · White House Press · Executive Office of the President · Public domain (US Government work)

Undrafted in 1996. Played in the CBA, in Italy, then in Washington, before arriving in Detroit in 2000 in the Grant Hill trade. The first four years he was good. The next four he was the best defensive player in the world.

Four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year (2002, 2003, 2005, 2006). Four-time All-Star. Anchored the 2004 championship defense and the 64-18 team in 2005-06 — that team gave up fewer points per game than any other in the NBA.

Average size at the position by inches. Outsized for it in every other way. The Hall of Fame caught up to him in 2021.

Career Lines

Pistons tenure
2000-06, 2009-12 · 9 seasons
Career PPG (Pistons)
6.8
Career RPG (Pistons)
10.7
Career BPG
2.0
Championships
1 (2004)

Accolades

  • · Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (2021)
  • · 4× NBA Defensive Player of the Year
  • · 4× NBA All-Star
  • · 2× NBA Rebounding champion
  • · Jersey No. 3 retired by the Pistons

The numbers haven't surfaced

We've got the file on Ben Wallace— the season-by-season ledger hasn't come up yet. The archive's reach gets thinner the deeper you go before 1980. Try another name, or head back to the era pages.

NBA records, 1946–present