McDyess Enjoys Healthy Season for a Change

Antonio McDyess wouldn’t be helping the Detroit Pistons defend their NBA title if his agent had listened to him.

The former All-Star and Olympian wanted to retire last season because he was tired of rehabbing his left knee while struggling to revive his career in New York and Phoenix.

“I wanted to give up,” McDyess said in an interview with Associated Press. “I kept saying to myself, ‘I can’t go through this anymore. My career is over.

“I was so depressed I didn’t want to go to practice, and on game days I didn’t want to get out of bed. I called my agent, Andy Miller, when I was in New York and again when I got traded to Phoenix and told him to get me out of my contract.”

Miller is glad he did not heed his client’s wishes.

“After he had three surgeries on the knee, I understood where he was coming from,” Miller said. “But Antonio would’ve had to literally force me to retire him because I didn’t want him to cut his career short.”

During the last two months of last season, his second stint with the Suns, McDyess slowly started to feel and play better and became confident he still had a future in the NBA.

Joe Dumars, the Pistons’ president of basketball operations, estimates he stayed up late to watch McDyess play about 20 games toward the end of last season.

“I thought he was lying to me when he told me that,” McDyess said.

McDyess agreed to play in Detroit for $23 million over four years -- turning down more lucrative offers -- to replace Mehmet Okur, who signed a $50-million, six-year deal with Utah.

The 30-year-old McDyess proved to be a relative bargain.

He averaged 9.6 points and 6.3 rebounds over 77 regular-season games after playing just 52 during the three previous seasons. And he helped make up for the loss of Okur and Corliss Williamson, who was dealt to Philadelphia to clear salary-cap space.

McDyess will play a key role as Detroit’s top reserve in the playoffs, starting in the first round against Philadelphia.

“McDyess has been huge for us this year and I don’t know where we would have been without him,” Dumars said. “He’s a great player and a great person. I love having him in the Pistons family.”

McDyess lives alone in suburban Detroit, but rarely longs for company.

“I’ve never been on a team that did things together like this team at home and on the road,” he said. “We go out together, we eat together, we hang out together. That doesn’t happen everywhere. A lot of teams have cliques, but this team doesn’t.”

McDyess has clicked on the court with the Pistons, with his turnaround jumper and sound defense, and off the court, where his laid-back personality fits in nicely.

Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace each averaged about 35 minutes while McDyess played 23.3 minutes a game during the regular season.

“It’s impressive to see what Dice has been able to do for us all year with short minutes,” teammate Tayshaun Prince said. “More and more, he’s starting to look like the old Dice.”

The former All-Star was on the 2000 Olympic team and the 1999 All-NBA third team because his talent and jumping ability allowed him to average more than 20 points and 10 rebounds in two seasons in Denver.

But the 6-foot-9, 245-pound forward knows images of his spectacular dunks and blocked shots had long been forgotten by most fans while he struggled to get healthy.

“Out of sight. Out of mind,” he said.

McDyess’ banged-up knee limited him to 10 games during the 2001-02 season, none the next season and just 42 last year with the Knicks and Suns.

“When he first came to us, he was really hurting,” Phoenix forward Shawn Marion said. “But late in the season, he started to look like his old self. Now with the Pistons, he may not be one of the best power forwards in the game like he used to be, but he’s still pretty good.”

Pistons coach Larry Brown said the comebacks of McDyess and Orlando’s Grant Hill were two of the best stories this season.

“It’s been amazing when you consider what they both went through,” Brown said. “And, I really believe we’re going to start seeing Dice playing better and better. He does more and more things he used to do. He’s a tremendous player and a better guy.”

In a drawer next to McDyess’ bed, he has a pocket schedule of Detroit’s games that serves as a reminder of just how healthy he’s finally been.

“Every day that I wake up at home on a game day, the first thing I do is put a line through that game,” he said. “When I got through the third month of the season, I said, ‘Wow.’ It’s been a blessing to play the whole year without being injured or in pain.

“I’ve never went through a season and got to the end and still felt like I could go three more months. It makes me even more happy that I didn’t call it quits last year.”