Detroit Pistons - Brian Williams

Well this posting is in reference to the previous entry…
Being that I am the resident Pistons supporter, it is only natural that I would have a pretty solid collection of Pistons jerseys, since being in the area, they are the most abundant. During the mid-late 1990s, Champion made jerseys for almost any player that was remotely decent as well as the star players. I had graduated high school in 1995 and shortly after I had a job making decent money as well as living at home :p With my financials in better order, I was able to buy more jerseys and this just so happened to be the teal era of the Pistons. So I had purchased plenty of teal jerseys and still then I passed on many others (which I am hunting down now) as I didn't feel they would be with the team long (Stacey Augmon, Grant Long, Christian Laettner to name a few that I passed on and seek now).

Well back to Brian Williams. In 1997 Brian Williams joined the Chicago Bulls for the final month of the season and was a huge contributer to that team who would go on to win the championship. His play during that stretch increased his value and the Pistons were happy to offer him a generous contract. So for the 1997/98 campaign, Brian Williams became a member of the Detroit Pistons. I have always been a fan of him from his days in Orlando where he battled depression, and his days in Denver where he was a huge contributer to the Nuggets team which upset the Seattle Supersonics in the 1994 playoffs. He came to Detroit and was a huge impact and played well during the darker days of Pistons basketball. Well sometime in 1998, Brian Williams changed his name in the Muslim faith to Bison Dele. The season got a late start that year because of the lock-out but my friend and I had gone to a game and while at the Palace store, they had Brian Williams jerseys on sale for $12 brand new on the clearence rack. I got the teal (road) jersey pictured, and my friend got the home white jersey. It was a great value so I couldn't pass it up. At that time, I was not used to calling Bison Dele and refered to him as Williams for quite some time… And check back often to see some more rare and obscure Pistons jerseys!

Final NOTE: The person who was spotted at the game verses the Jazz in the Brian Williams jersey was NOT me! Bad weather that night kept me off the road as much as possible!

RIP Bison Dele also known as Brian Williams…