Tom Thibodeau, Wolves recall history at The Palace, now in its final NBA season

BEVERLY HILLS, MICH. – Timberwolves coach Tom Thibodeau was 31 years old and possessed a luxuriant head of hair the first time he coached an NBA game at The Palace of Auburn Hills.

On Friday, he will coach and the Wolves will play there for the last time.

The prototype for modern-day NBA arenas when it opened in 1988 with 180 luxury suites reaching from courtside toward the rafters, the Palace — as it's more simply called — has been home to three Pistons NBA championship teams as well as the infamous 2004 "Malice at the Palace" brawl.

It's where Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, Joe Dumars, Dennis Rodman first won championships, before Chauncey Billups, Rasheed Wallace and Rip Hamilton earned another title.

It's where longtime arena P.A. announcer and morning-drive radio host John Mason theatrically and loudly introduced the home team and where his rallying cry still rings in opponent's ears:

Deee-troit, Baaas-ket-ball …

"That's part of the building, I think," Thibodeau said.

The Pistons will move from Auburn Hills and play, starting next season, at the NHL Red Wings' new $732 million Little Caesars Arena in downtown Detroit, near where the NFL's Lions and MLB's Tigers play.

The Palace's $90 million cost was privately financed by then-Pistons owner Bill Davidson. It's still standing long after three NBA arenas opened around that time — Orlando's Amway Arena, the Charlotte Coliseum and Miami Arena — all have been torn down in part because they didn't have the massive number of revenue-producing suites The Palace did.

Nearly 30 years after it opened, The Palace remains only one of two NBA arenas — Madison Square Garden is the other — that hasn't sold off naming rights.

Now that Sacramento's new Golden 1 Center this season replaced an arena once known as ARCO, only Madison Square Garden, Golden State's Oracle Arena and Milwaukee's Bradley Center are older than Target Center, which opened in 1990. And new arenas are being built in San Francisco and Milwaukee while Target Center is undergoing a major remodel.

The Pistons will play their final game at The Palace on April 10 against Washington if they don't make the playoffs.

"It's a great place for basketball, great atmosphere," said Wolves guard Brandon Rush, who in his ninth NBA season is the Wolves' most experienced player. "I'm sad to see it go, but it happens. Time to move on."

Thibodeau was a rookie assistant to Bill Musselman on the Wolves' inaugural team when he coached at The Palace for the first time, a 97-86 loss in January 1990. That game came midway through the Pistons' second consecutive championship season, coached by Chuck Daly and featuring Thomas, Dumars, Laimbeer, Rodman and others dubbed "The Bad Boys."

"It was a different league back then with the physicality of the league, the great rivalries," said Thibodeau, now 59. "Detroit could not get past Boston initially. Then they finally got past them and Chicago couldn't get past Detroit and then Chicago finally got past Detroit. There have been some great battles."

Eighteen years later, Thibodeau was Boston's top assistant on a remade team starring Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce that beat a Detroit team coached by former Wolves boss Flip Saunders in a six-game Eastern Conference finals.

"It was great, just great," Thibodeau said. "Hard fought. They had a lot of their former players there, and we had a lot of our former players there. There was a lot of history and it was a great battle. They have great fans here that really understand the game. It was a lot of fun."

Growing up in Connecticut, Thibodeau followed the Pistons — when they played everywhere from Olympia Stadium and Cobo Hall to the Pontiac Silverdome through the years — because his father attended St. Bonaventure, the alma mater of Pistons legend Bob Lanier.

"Lanier, Dave Bing," Thibodeau said. "I know their history pretty well."

Starting next fall, the Pistons — with Stan Van Gundy both managing the roster and coaching the team — will write new history in their new home.

"This is a great area for basketball," Thibodeau said. "I think everyone is looking forward to what's coming next."