Sports LC Thread

Rodman too low

Please proceed.

This is about the 97-98 season?

The Bulls averaged a 0.039 higher effective FG percentage with Scottie on the court and held opponents to a .038 higher effective FG percentage. He was a good scorer and a mediocre defender. This is probably not quite fair to him as he was often subbed in for Kerr who was probably undervalued.

Rodman was neutral for eFG% and slightly helped defensive eFG%. But he increased offensive RB% by 5.6%. That’s like three extra possessions a game! And he increased defensive RB% by 4.2%, again which directly generates multiple possessions per game.

edit: mixed up which way defensive eFG% was good and bad

Despite the title, it’s really about MJ’s Bulls, from beginning to end.

If you’re talking about that one season where Pippen was coming off of injury and played only part of the season, that’s a lot narrower than the documentary.

My comment of Jordan > Pippen > Rodman had to do with the entire time the 3 were together, all of which was covered in the documentary.

Rodman’s 1996-97 advanced stats are even more insane than his 1997-98 stats and Pippen’s numbers look about the same. That site I linked to doesn’t have on/off numbers for 1995-96 but Pippen and Rodman’s bulk stats look roughly similar to the next two years.

Like it wasn’t a coincidence that the Bulls went 72-10 and 69-13 the first two years Rodman showed up. I’m not saying that Pippen wasn’t a great player, he obviously was. But the Bulls could score efficiently without Scottie. No one could do what Rodman did. It wasn’t a coincidence that championships happened to follow him around the league. Who else won championships with three different clubs?

It would be like saying Draymond is more important than Klay (pre-Durant for the specific analogy).

It’s not insane at all. I don’t know that the above is true fwiw.

Rodman and Green have particularly extensive on/off numbers with all their suspensions. :laughing:

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Rodman was an amazing defender and created additional possessions through offensive rebounding while denying opponents the same.

It seems intuitively true bc he was such an outlier at what he did that his value would exceed Pippen’s. Pippen was great, but the drop-off with someone like Kukoc filling those minutes wouldn’t change the dynamics of the game enough to offset Rodman’s unique pluses if he was absent. One of the things overlooked with Rodman is he didn’t take shots, that’s a plus. (And dude moved the ball very fast.)
Draymond takes double the amount of shots per 36 (I’m not going to look at pace to make it more apples to apples).

Robert Horry

Might end up adding Danny Green and Bron to that list.

Good chance either Kawhi or Danny Green and LeBron would have had titles with 3 different teams after this season.

Ponied.

Somehow forgot Kawhi tho (previous two with DG ldo).

At the end of the day, I don’t think anyone is going to argue that Rodman was way more valuable than Pippen. So even if the reality in your mind is that Rodman was a bit more important than Pippen, but the narrative is that he was a bit less important than Pippen, then Rodman wouldn’t exactly be “unsung”. I mean this is Scottie Fucking Pippen he’s being measured against. At worst, Rodman could have been a tad underappreciated.

I’m arguing Rodman was way more valuable than Pippen. Scorers in the NBA are a dime a dozen. Pippen goes down and there’s someone on the bench to replace him. Rodman was generating 5 possessions a game, irreplaceable.

It also makes sense bc the Bulls were better in their second 3peat (with Pippen and MJ older) largely bc of Rodman’s value added over this guy:

hogo

Anyway I should probably stop plagiarizing this guy and just link to his case for Dennis Rodman

Pippen was a lot more than a “scorer”. He was an excellent defender and lead them in assists.

“Way more valuable” is a bit subjective, but I think the list of NBA players “way more valuable than Scottie Pippen” from that era is pretty short. I don’t think Rodman makes the list.

A lot of Pippen’s value is that he allows the team to not suck if MJ happens to miss a some time. Obviously that didn’t happen, but that’s value. Value that Rodman doesn’t have.

If anything, the common narrative at the time among basketball heads may have been that Rodman was overrated. (Smilar to how Jordan was regarded as a ballhog in all the nba chatrooms at the time).

I remember him going on Oprah (I assume the MJ lol’ing gif episode) and Oprah saying, in her opinion, he was the greatest rebounder ever - and then all the soccer moms clapped.

Who would be more valuable to the Bulls, a clone of Scottie Pippen or Dennis Rodman?

Well, that’s not exactly a piping hot take.