Well-heeled Wallace the central focus of Bulls' woes

Ben Wallace has struggled this season for a Chicago team that already fired its coach and is battling just to make the playoffs. Nick Laham/Getty Images

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In a recent British survey, one in four respondents said Winston Churchill never existed, assuming him to be a fictitious character along with Florence Nightingale and Sir Walter Raleigh. And yet many of those surveyed believe that Sherlock Holmes, Eleanor Rigby and the Three Musketeers were real historical figures.

Makes me wonder where those Brits stand on the legend of Big Ben. As Sir Howard Mandel might say, real or not real? Because in Chicago, Big Ben Wallace is starting to seem more like a myth that drifted out of the Scottish, or rather Michigan, Highlands.

Ol' Nessie of Loch Ness seems more legit half the time than Wallace and his intended impact on the Chicago Bulls' ambitions as title contenders.

At 18-29, the Bulls aren't even worthy of a kids' bedtime story, much less myths or legends; the Little Engine That Could would be ashamed of them for their lack of drive and absence of goal-setting. It has been a hard half-season of "We don't think we can, we don't think we can,'' complicated by the firing of coach Scott Skiles, disruptive trade rumors about Kobe Bryant and futile contract talks involving forward Luol Deng and guard Ben Gordon.

Throughout, Wallace's underwhelming presence as Chicago's starting center and reluctant leader has kept the team and its fans focused on the Bulls' flaws rather than their strengths. On too many defeats and way too few victories, right from the start.

Just two weeks into the season, with Chicago's 1-6 record already tripping alarms, Hall of Famer and TV personality Charles Barkley pointed a big finger directly at Big Ben. "I love Ben Wallace,'' Barkley said. "But we go back to Denny Green: He is who we thought he is. He's a defender, he's a hard-working guy, and that fit well in Detroit. He made a terrible mistake going from Detroit to Chicago, because now, he doesn't have those four other guys. ... Sometimes you've got to take less money. He should have stayed in Detroit.''

Almost three months later, after a lifeless 83-67 loss in Minneapolis, Wallace told me: "Um, there's no one guy, when things happen like this, you can turn to. That's why you've got to come together as a team and fight your way through it.''

Let's be honest right up front that this does, in fact, have a lot to do with money. If Wallace were plugging along at a mid-level exception salary, if he were the Bulls' fourth- or fifth-highest-paid player, his acquisition would be viewed as a disappointment, an unfortunate decision.

But because he signed a four-year deal worth $60 million and draws the biggest check by far in the Chicago locker room -- $15.5 million this season, three times what Gordon makes, four times what Deng is playing for and No. 20 on a ranking of all NBA players -- Wallace is A Colossal Mistake, A Crippling Move and a Salary-Cap Disaster, rolled into one.

"Ben has a big target on his back, and it's the contract,'' coach Jim Boylan said. "The team has been struggling. So the first thing they look at is the coach. The second thing -- or maybe 1 and 1A -- is the player who's getting the most money.

"He doesn't seem to let it bother him. But we're all human beings. I'm sure there are moments when it gets him down. That's the business of basketball. When you get a big contract, big responsibilities come along with it.''

When Wallace signed with Chicago -- a signing that, at the time, few among the media or fans openly criticized -- he was expected to put starch in the young Bulls' shorts, while showing them the ways of a champion. After all, he had been voted NBA Defensive Player of the Year four times while helping the Pistons to five conference championship rounds, two Finals and one title.

Initially, he seemed to help. The Bulls' defensive average improved from 16th in 2005-06 (97.2 ppg) to sixth (93.8) and, though Wallace didn't emerge as a dominant personality in the locker room, Chicago went from 41-41 to 49-33, won a playoff series for the first time since the Michael Jordan era and appeared to be on track.

This season, though, the Bulls have backslid, slipping both in defensive scoring average (97.3) and shooting percentage (44.6 after 43.5 last season). Wallace's scoring average (4.6) is his lowest in 10 years, which mostly matters because of injuries to Deng and Gordon. His rebounding (8.7) and blocks (1.7) are his lowest in eight seasons, which matters far more.

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