Detroit Pistons: 3 reasons to pursue Carmelo Anthony

3. Correcting a 15-year-old mistake

The 2003 NBA Draft class is arguably the greatest of all time. Four of the top five picks are most likely headed for the Hall of Fame, and one of them is considered one of the five or 10 best players the sport has ever seen.

The Pistons were the one team with a top-five pick that blew it.

The No. 1 pick in 2003 was a no-brainer. LeBron James was a can’t-miss superstar coming out of high school with “the next Magic Johnson” written all over him. The Cleveland Cavaliers wasted no time snapping up the kid who had grown up in their backyard in Akron, Ohio.

The Pistons had the second overall pick. They had a choice between the best player in college basketball, Syracuse freshman forward Carmelo Anthony; and the best international prospect in the draft, Serbian seven-footer Darko Milicic.  Anthony had just led the Orange to an NCAA national championship, averaging 22.2 points and 10.0 rebounds per game. Milicic was producing less than half of that (9.5 points, 4.6 rebounds) for his pro team in Serbia.

The Pistons also could have gone with Georgia Tech forward Chris Bosh, or Marquette guard Dwyane Wade. But according to almost every mock draft and big board, Melo and Darko were the two best prospects after LeBron.

Detroit chose Darko. He would go on to start two games for the Pistons in three seasons, scoring fewer than two points a night on average. He was traded to the Orlando Magic in 2006, bounced around the league on a few more teams and retired in 2013 as a career backup.

Anthony went on to make 10 NBA All-Star Game appearances and six All-NBA teams, lead the league in scoring in 2012-13, and crack the all-time top 20 in total points. (He’s currently 19th.)

It’s not like drafting Darko over Melo immediately sank the Pistons as a franchise. The Pistons went into the 2003 draft fresh off an NBA Finals appearance, and had that No. 2 pick thanks to an old trade with the Memphis Grizzlies. The Pistons, of course, won an NBA championship in 2004, meaning Darko won a ring before any of his more famous draft classmates.

But considering what Anthony would become, perhaps he’d have helped the Pistons win multiple championships playing with Chauncey Billups, Ben Wallace, Rip Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace and Tayshaun Prince.

Perhaps he could’ve carried the torch for Detroit after that core group aged out. With Anthony in Detroit during his prime, perhaps the Pistons don’t miss the playoffs eight of the last nine years.

Fifteen years later, obviously the Pistons would not be getting the best version of Carmelo Anthony. The 16.2 points per game he scored last season were a career-low, the first time he’s averaged less than 20 per game as a pro.

The playoffs were a disaster, as Anthony scored just 11.8 points per game on 37.5 percent shooting from the field. A lot of media and fans were calling for Anthony to be benched during OKC’s first round series loss to the underdog Utah Jazz.

But in the wake of Friday’s news, there is a segment of Detroit fans who want the team to right the wrongs of 2003 and get Carmelo Anthony.

The Pistons can’t offer him much more than maybe a more featured role on offense and an appreciative crowd, but that might work as an apology to Antony for passing on him a long time ago.