Being a standout in the NBA can come from many things — individual awards and stats, championship rings, big contracts or being a fan favorite. But there's another quality that sets certain players apart.
Chauncey Billups saw that rare trait in his longtime Detroit Pistons teammate Tayshaun Prince , calling him the kind of player every future NBA pro would try to model themselves after.
"Ten years after Tay, everyone in the league will be trying to copy that blueprint," claimed Chauncey, per "The Players' Tribune."
Prince retired in 2016 as a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves , giving us nearly a decade of hindsight to test Billups' claim.
It's hard to prove empirically, but today's NBA trends offer a clear verdict. Just look at how often fans hear that every team needs a reliable two-way wing — exactly the kind of player Prince, a 6'9" lefty forward, was throughout his 14-year career.
Billups sensed it long before the rise of the 3-and-D player, believing Prince — drafted in 2002 out of Kentucky — would have been invaluable if he had entered the league just a few years later.
For "Mr. Big Shot," after witnessing his teammate's defensive brilliance and versatility up close for seven seasons in Detroit — and seeing how the league was evolving — the evidence was undeniable.
"In a lot of ways, as crazy as it sounds, Tayshaun will be the future of basketball," remarked the now- Portland Trail Blazers head coach. "The future — bottled up in one wiry, 6-foot-9, 200-pound frame."
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If you'd told Billups early in those Pistons days that he'd one day see his teammate this way, he probably would've stared at you in disbelief. That's because, back then, even he didn't quite realize what they had in Prince — the quiet, polite kid who mostly kept to himself at first.
But beneath that calm surface, a valuable player was emerging — one who would make the All-Defensive Second Team multiple times. Prince kept getting better and better, ultimately carving out a game all his own, a two-way style now mirrored by elite NBA wings like Mikal Bridges , OG Anunoby , Jaden McDaniels , Aaron Nesmith and Luguentz Dort .
For all of them, Billups said, Prince was the prototype — long arms, the ability to guard one through four and a knack for crushing an opponent's spirit with one suffocating defensive play. Yet the California native also had that smooth stroke, the kind that let him bury jumpers over even the most athletic defenders.
Often copied but never truly duplicated, Chauncey — who affectionately called him "Nephew" — said Tayshaun will always be the original.
In the end, Prince might belong to that rare class of players who simply arrived too soon. In today's league, his game would be perfectly suited — his skills would stand out, his value would soar and his total NBA earnings would far exceed the roughly $80 million he made during his era.
Still, there's some kind of redemption in the story. After all, Tay walked away from the game with a championship ring — an achievement that might have slipped away in
other timeline. It came in 2004, when he, Billups and the rest of that hard-nosed Pistons team dismantled the star-studded Los Angeles Lakers 4-1 in the NBA Finals.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Nov 2, 2025, where it first appeared in the Old School section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
