Both 2017 Golden State Warriors and 2004 Detroit Pistons are among the best NBA line-ups, but who takes the win if the two were to clash? The debate that gained popularity with Rasheed Wallace’s claims in 2017 has once again surfaced with players from two sides expressing their opinions on this. The most recent one has come from Andre Iguodala in response to Wallace doubling down on his claim.

Iguodala believes Wallace made some good points for his claim, but it’s still the Warriors who’ll win. “Will we have won? Yes, but that team probably would give us more problems than any other team. Their starting five would be a good matchup,” he said. The 2004 Pistons starting five were Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace and Ben Wallace. Meanwhile, 2017 Warriors starting five were Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, Zaza Pachulia, and Klay Thompson.

Rasheed had earlier stated, “I told you, we beat their a**. There’s no way nobody on that team can f**k with me in my prime.” He also mentioned 2017 Warriors’ half of the players have played against them, and they know the reality. Sheed also claimed that the 2004 Pistons could not play defense, but Iguodala countered this statement in his recent response. He emphasized, “how much defense would we have to really worry about if they only score 80 some points?”

It’s worth mentioning that Warriors had a better record during their championship win as they finished the regular season 67-15, and playoffs with 16-1. Meanwhile, the Pistons went 58-24 in their regular season, and 16-7 in the playoffs. However, these figures cannot act as evidence, concrete enough to reach a conclusion. In fact, there is no concrete way of reaching a conclusion, but a closer look into it may shed some more light on the issue.

2004 Piston v 2017 Warriors: Analyzing who is taking the win

It’s important to highlight that GSW not only took the lead in regular season and playoffs win-loss record, but also leads in almost every other statistical aspect. Except for blocks per game, the Warriors got higher points, rebounds, assists, steals, and 3-pointers per game — both in regular season and playoffs. Now, the stats may seem to favor GSW, but there are certain arguments in the favor of Pistons as well.

The first one of these is Piston’s defense, as highlighted by Rasheed Wallace as well. In fact, Wallace himself was a 4x Defensive Player of the Year. But more importantly, the only player in league history to record more blocks than personal fouls. The 2004 Pistons were the second best defensively rated team in the league, limiting the opponents to just 84.3 ppg. Yet another advantage to the Pistons would be the depth in their line-up with players like Mike James, Lindsey Hunter, and Corliss Williamson.

Despite all the above information, the most concrete take on this can come from a player who played both the teams. That player turned out to be Richard Jefferson with his recent opinion on who takes the win b/w the two teams. He believes not only the 2017 Warriors would’ve beaten the Pistons, but his Cleveland Cavaliers would’ve done the same.

Jefferson mentioned Warriors to be the second best team he saw after the 2001 Lakers with Shaq on it. “So respect to ‘04 Pistons, great champions, under-talked about team, but against that ‘17 Warriors team, it would’ve been a gentleman’s sweep,” he said during an episode of Road Trippin. So, according to the 2016 NBA champ, it’s the 2017 Warriors who is taking the win. Now it’s to be seen if this is a conclusion to a debate or a beginning to a fresh debate.

Stay tuned for more such updates, and to follow what Shaq’s ex-agent, Leonard Armato, has to say about the Reese-Clark rivalry and more, watch this video.