Billups' smiling eyes

Why not? Pistons hot, his wife is expecting - and he is an All-Star

Steve Trivett, Special to the News

Published February 17, 2006 at midnight

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ORLANDO, Fla. - The eyes never lie.

Chauncey Billups' eyes do more than just provide a window into his soul.

They burn brightly when he talks about his team, the Detroit Pistons.

They flash with sheer joy when you mention his wife Piper, daughters Cydney and Ciana and the third child that will join the family in August.

They sparkle when he sees old friends.

But they can darken from the memories of some of those bleak days, when he sometimes believed he might not be good - or healthy - enough to play the game he had loved since he first touched a basketball on the playgrounds of Denver.

And they grow wider than wide when you greet him with the words, "Hello, All-Star."

Billups was selected last week as a reserve for the Eastern Conference team that will play the West in the NBA All-Star Game in Houston's Toyota Center on Sunday (6 p.m. MST, TNT).

It will be the first All-Star appearance of his eight-year NBA career. The starting lineup was chosen by fans. The remainder of the team was picked by NBA coaches.

And that makes his eyes glimmer with pride.

"It's nice to know that the coaches feel that I'm doing the right things," he said. "Since I heard about it (being selected), I've been afraid to pinch myself because I might wake up."

There was little doubt in the minds of most experts that Billups would be selected.

He's the driving force behind the Pistons, who won 42 of their first 51 games.

In those 51 games, he has averaged 18.9 points a game, 8.5 assists and 3.2 rebounds.

But the numbers don't tell the whole story.

Even before the bus carrying the Pistons rolled up to the back door of Orlando's TD Waterhouse Center for a morning shootaround last week before the Pistons would play the Magic, a small crowd had gathered.

One by one, the players came off the bus and entered the arena.

The Pistons' other All-Stars, Richard Hamilton, Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace, and Detroit coach Flip Saunders, who will direct the East squad, entered the bowels of the building in silence.

Then came Billups.

"Hey, Chauncey," one of the security guards yelled. "Welcome back."

Billups broke ranks for a quick handshake and a hug.

There was a time Billups was a member of the Magic.

He had come to Orlando during the 1999-2000 season from Denver, but he didn't play a game for the Magic because of a dislocated left shoulder.

Those were the days when the eyes grew dark.

"I wasn't going to give up," he said. "But there were times when I did think that maybe I couldn't reach the top. I knew I had the ability to be a good player who could have a good, solid career, but that dream that you have as a kid of being the best seemed like it just might be a dream."

It wasn't.

After two years with Minnesota, he signed as a free agent with the Pistons before the 2002-03 season.

The next season, the Pistons won the NBA championship and Billups was chosen Most Valuable Player of the Finals.

The dreams, and all the necessary validation, were alive again.

And being picked for the All-Star Game this season punched that validation ticket once again.

"It really is validation that I can be one of the best," said Billups, who has been just that at every level.

He was a four-year starter at George Washington High School and took his team to a state championship his junior year.

He was all-everything during his years at the University of Colorado.

He was a first-round pick in the 1997 NBA draft.

He has been a world champion.

And now he's an All-Star.

There is a very good chance he'll be an Olympian in 2008, even if the birth of his third child puts playing for the U.S. in this year's World Championships in doubt.

He gets recognized when he goes out in public, and it doesn't bother him in the least.

He has traded jokes with David Letterman.

He can laugh at himself.

He and Piper don't know the sex of the new baby, but Billups knows if it's another girl he'll be quadruple-teamed in his own home with no way out.

"Oh, man," he said, his eyes now rolling in mock fear when it's mentioned he could be the only male in a four-female household. "I can't win now, and there is no way I could win then."

But he might have the final word come Sunday, when Saunders could put four Pistons on the floor against the Western Conference All-Stars.

"It don't matter," Billups said when asked whom he would pick among his All-Star teammates to fill the fifth spot, should Saunders put his Pistons on the court at one time. "We're not going to run a play where he would ever touch the ball."

And the eyes danced with laughter.

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