Most NBA guys would tell you Rodman was the better player.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

First of all, what you're saying isn't true. There are lots of guys who follow the NBA religiously who don't consider Rodman a no-brainer for the Hall of Fame. A lot of us listen to one of them from 1-6 each day. Besides that, I'm not making a case for Rodman's exclusion.

I think the conclusion Zeph is drawing from that chart that "Rodman was the greatest rebounder of all-time" is misguided. Rodman was a unique guy. In many ways. And he certainly developed a unique style of rebounding the basketball wherein he would tip the ball out of reach of bigger players until he was in a position to actually grab it. At some point scorers began crediting him with a rebound for each tip, vastly inflating his numbers.

Finally, I'm not in anyway trying to diminish Dennis Rodman or his accomplishments. In fact, he's my favorite NBA player ever. The anti-establishment guy. The punk rock guy. The "Fuck you!" guy. I like Rodman the way Cairo likes Scottie. In this very forum, I've railed against Bob Costas and the unabashed campaign of hatred he waged against Rodman. I once wore a Rodman tie while I closed a multi-million dollar deal. (See attached.)

But just because I like the guy and enjoyed watching him play, doesn't mean I shouldn't objectively be able to put his career and the things he did in perspective. He just wasn't as good a player as a guy like Buck Williams. He wasn't as good as a guy like Bill Bridges. Hell, I think Bridges got 17 and 17 or something like that a couple seasons. These guys were similar type players to Rodman and they did the same kind of job better than Rodman did. That's all I'm saying.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

When did you take that poll?

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

I've read a ton of NBA writers over the past decade and talked to a ton of huge NBA fans. It's pretty much a consensus that Rodman is a HOF'er one of the best rebounders/defenders in history.

Also, where did you hear that he was credited with a rebound for every bobble of the ball? I've never heard of that in any era.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Boers and Bernstein are completely wrong on this point, and it's especially poor form from Bernstein though not really a surprise given his hypocritical rejection of basketball metrics.

It's not just that chart but the entire series it's from. I've never seen convincing evidence that Rodman's stats were significantly inflated by tips to himself, nor do I believe such increases are anywhere near large enough to account for how downright anomalous his numbers historically are.


As FavreFan noted, it's silly to compare rebounding numbers across eras without accounting for pace. Bridges' seasons where he maxed out at 15 rebounds per game do not indicate he was anywhere near as a good a rebounder as the years that Rodman averaged the same or better.

I agree with you there.



Maybe you're correct. At least some of his rebounds weren't really what we would traditionally call a rebound. So his numbers are inflated to some degree. It's similar to some of those high assist games where Hardaway might inbound the ball to Skiles who immediately tossed it right back which was followed by Hardaway driving to the hoop and an assist being credited to Skiles. That isn't an assist where I come from. Rebounding numbers can be deceiving. I once read an interview- I believe it was with Steve Mix- where Mix said that he knew he needed good rebounding numbers to stay in the league. He always tried his hardest the last minute of the half or the game. At those points most other guys had let down. If he could grab and extra one right before the half and a couple more in the last minute of the game, now he averaged 10 instead of seven. That didn't really make him a great rebounder. Just a pretty smart guy.



Okay, I just don't want to see you or Favre Fan state in another argument at a different time that the game was slower in the seventies if you're going to say it was faster for the sake of this argument.

Finally, even if we grant your conclusions on rebounding, I still don't think that makes Rodman a superior player to Buck Williams, a guy who scored more at a more efficient percentage as well as did a lot of other things better and whose rebounding was very strong by any measure.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

But I think you're overvaluing that.

Think about it this way for a minute. Joakim Noah is a similar player to Rodman with regard to style. I'm not suggesting he's Rodman's equal, but if he has fifteen seasons like he's having this year, he will be in a conversation of similar guys. Now take a guy like Carmelo Anthony who would be more like an Alex English. If you could trade Noah straight up for Anthony, the vast majority of people would say it was a no-brainer. Now imagine in fifteen years the same people insisting that Noah was better than Anthony. That's kind of how I see the concept that Rodman was better than Alex English.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

First off, those are very poor comparisons. Rodman is far superior to any rebounder or defender in the league today. Noah is a top 10 rebounder and not a top 10 defender.

Remember Ben Wallace like 5-6 years ago. Imagine a significantly better version of him. That player would be invaluable in a league like today's, where fewer guys can do what Rodman did than ever before.

You said scoring is important. Just so you know, rebounding rates and defensive efficiency is usually a much higher indcator of success than scoring. Rodman helped his teams win more than Alex English, Noah, or Melo.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

To further bear out this last point, here's a chart looking at the different success of teams with and without particular players in the lineup for those who have missed enough games to total 1000 minutes of playing time across their careers.

.

Okay, but doesn't that speak more to the way a player fit onto his specific team rather than his true overall value as a player? I don't think too many people are going to make the argument that Marcus Camby was a better player than Akeem.

Also, it's very rare for me to stand up for dan bernstein, but I do want to point out his viewpoint with regard to advanced statistical analysis in basketball vis-a-vis baseball and why he doesn't consider his position hypocritical. He sees baseball as a one-on-one game of pitcher vs. hitter largely unaffected by other circumstances. I don't necessarily agree, but that viewpoint is currently quite fashionable. On the other hand, he sees the connectivity of the players on a basketball team to be so deep that the value of many of their individual statistics is questionable.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

Jorr you're wrong and I'm sure you're aware of that. Rodman was never given credit for more than 1 rebound for tipping the ball to himself. No one gets credit for more than 1 rebound UNLESS there is a shot attempt. The rest of that is just your opinion and of course I think you're wrong.

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Okay, but that gets to the heart of a conversation that is pervasive on sports radio in Chicago right now. Do Deng and Noah fit in with Rose and the Bulls better than Dwight Howard would? It's easy to thunder and scream that "YOU. HAVE. TO. MAKE. THAT. TRADE!" But who knows how it really works out in the real world. And regardless, I don't think anyone is going to say Howard isn't a superior player to Noah even though he might not make the team better.

I remember you taking a lot of heat for comparing Deng to Carmelo. You were ridiculed. That isn't quite so ridiculous now, is it? Take a victory lap, kid.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

I know what is supposed to be credited as a rebound. Just like I know what is supposed to be credited as an assist. What actually got credited was different. I guarantee we can go through a game tape of Rodman with the Bulls and there will be extra rebounds credited to him.

Revisionist history is great. There weren't many Bulls fans that thought Rodman was anything but a thug when he played his prime in Detroit. Then he came to Chicago at the end of his career and played on a team with the best player in the league and a guy who complemented him like nobody else could and suddenly he became far greater than he ever was.

And again, I'm not bashing Dennis. He's my favorite player ever. He did stuff the Bulls needed him to do.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

Who is really the one doing revisionist history tho? You make an argument, even a guarantee, based on something you know is never going to happen.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I'm sure guys like Scorehead called him a thug but really that is irrelevant. John Stockton was a dirty player and one of the best point guards that ever lived.

I dont disagree with Bernstein's views on advanced NBA stats necessarily but they are a good benchmark to use. Also I never brought them up, Zephr did. You don't need stats. Your eyes should tell you Rodman was a great player, a greater one than guys like Alex English and Kiki Vandeweghe.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

can't believe i'm agreeding with RFDC...but JORR is getting pwned in this thread
totally wrong
no evidence whatsoever that multiple tips equals multiple rebounds
implying that somehow rebounds Rodman got weren't 'important' because some guy JORR can tell a story about said he boosted his numbers in the final minutes because others weren't trying. so i guess that means you can go back and show us proof that Rodman did that and wasn't garnering those numbers in the crucial points of the games.

Do you feel a need for a shower?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

also JORR is now the expert on what is or isn't a rebound/assist

why don't you go back and rewatch every single NBA game and adjust the stats to your liking so we can know what "really happened"

i'm not denying that sometimes there are generous assists given or maybe a rebound here or there credited that maybe shouldn't have been, but like most statistical things those even out over time. if we were talking about a small sample size you'd have a point, but over a long career...no

i give credit where credit is due

just in your case it isn't that often

What are you talking about?

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

My eyes don't tell me a guy who was never more than the third best player on any team he played on and averaged 7 ppg for his career was better than guys who averaged 22 regardless of how great you think his defense was. That's like saying Marty Marion is more deserving of the Hall of Fame than Michael Young. Neither one probably bleongs but there isn't much argument about who had the better career. Yeah, Rodman happened to be a great fit as a complementary player on a couple dynastic teams. That might even be enough for him to be considered a Hall of Fame player. But to say he's better than guys who carried their teams and were premium scorers in the league seems silly to me.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

What did Alex English ever carry his team to?

Also JORR - ppg in a vacuum is about as useless a stat as there is. 21 ppg means nothing without context. It's insane that you're trying to say guys like Glenn Robinson were better than Rodman.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I've never mentioned Glenn Robinson in this entire thread.

Also, I'm not sure why Bagels believes I'm getting "pwnd". I think I'm making pretty good points and backing them up. As far as Rodman's inflated rebounds are concerned, I am finding hard to believe that this is the first time hardcore fans of "The League" have heard such a thing.

I'll end with this because I don't really care enough to go around and around on this. You're never going to convince me that Rodman was better than Buck Williams or Alex English or Reggie Miller or Mark Aguirre or a bunch of other guys who aren't in the Hall of Fame and probably never will be. And I'm never going to convince you otherwise.

I know the baseball Hall of Fame much better than a do its basketball counterpart. I have a better grasp on why certain guys are in, whether I agree with their inclusion or not. I realize that in this information age their is a groundswell of support for looking at esoteric stats and using them to reform our ideas about how valuable players may or may not have been. And this part is directed more toward Zeph's observations than anything you've said. I don't think there should be statistical benchmarks for inclusion to the Halls. And when we start to split up wins and assign fractions of them to certain players, well, that may be very valuable for signing free agents, but I don't think we should build a Hall of Fame that way. The best way is by the votes of those who cover the games and let the arguments- like this one- ensue. Within that context I have no problem with Dennis Rodman in the Hall of Fame.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.

It's pretty widely viewed that the unique way he batted the ball around resulted in padding his numbers to some degree. Whether it's a rebound per game or whatever, I have no idea. My main point is that rebounding numbers are deceiving. Rodman also padded his number by refusing to be part of the offense. The Bulls and Piston were often playing 4 on 5 on offense while Dennis set up for the offensive board. They were good enough to do that. But in a different context it would have been a negative for a team.

Finally, Alex English was a EIGHT TIME All-Star. How many All-Star teams did Rodman make? That's revisionist history. Obviously in the time he played, people didn't think he was as good as they do looking back. Maybe they're right now and they were wrong back then. I don't think so though.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

You made the blanket statement that anyone who averages 21 ppg is better than anyone who averages 7 ppg.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

You should stick with this. Usually you bring some pretty solid analysis on your arguments and even when I disagree with you, I can step back and say that at least he makes a solid case. In this one, not so much. Your entire case is full of empty statements that really prove nothing. Just admit defeat and move on to the next one. Even the best of the best lose a discussion around here.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I think Jorr is really missing a lot here. Not only was Rodman a great rebounded he was one of the best and most versatile defenders in the history of the game. He was the ultimate team player. He came into the league as a great scorer and rebounder but sacrificed his scoring because it wasn't what the team needed most. How many players do you know that would do that? That's why he has all those rings.

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i don't know HOVA, i saw a lot of games where Rodman kept tipping it in the basket and got credit for 2, 4, 10 extra points a game.

Completely agree.

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