NBA Draft: Redrafting the 1996 NBA draft class

With the 5th overall pick, the Minnesota Timberwolves select Ben Wallace

Ben Wallace knocks the ball away from Shaq in the 2004 NBA Finals

It is easy to claim 20/20 hindsight, but I still have to put it out there - the fact that 29 NBA teams passed on the opportunity to draft a player who went on to win the Defensive Player of the Year award 4 times is insane. Yes, Wallace never had a single season in his career averaging double digits in scoring, which is part of the reason why he's not a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but I'm quite sure that real basketball people will agree with my placement of Big Ben at #5 on our redraft here.

He was picked up as an undrafted free agent by the Washington Bullets in 1996. He did not find much on-court success with them, or the Orlando Magic, who traded him away to the Detroit Pistons to obtain George Hill in a sign-and-trade deal. It was in his stint with the Pistons that Wallace truly began to emerge as a stellar defender. He made the All-Defensive First Team and the All-NBA Third Team in his second season, averaging a league-leading 3.5 blocks per game as well as 1.7 steals.

In a 5-year spell from 2001 to 2006, Big Ben made 5 straight All-Defensive First Teams, won 4 Defensive Player of the Year awards and made an All-NBA Second Team or Third Team as the Pistons went to 5 straight Conference Finals and 2 NBA Finals. His career regressed as he got traded to the Chicago Bulls before moving to the Cavaliers, and Wallace returned to Detroit in 2009.

He retired in 2012 after 3 years riding the bench and missing the playoffs, but every conversation about the greatest defensive players in NBA history will now have his name thrown around for sure.