The skinnier Pistons Rodman you have seen guarding Jordan and magic types?

[Kblaze8855]

He also guarded Shaq.




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He was guarding quick guards/wings and Shaq at the same time, but nobody felt the need to point it out as exceptional. We just called those people small forwards.

Rodman. McKey. Pippen. Cliff Robinson. Worthy. Even Barkley at times believe it or not. Might be defending anyone. Not so much a “Switch everything” as a “Try everyone”.

The exceptional ones like Dennis, Pippen, and McKey could full court the guards come down and switch, then direct traffic and go guard the center with a good chance of slipping around and stealing the entry pass.

I suspect there have been dozens of people who could reasonably be called on to defend almost the entire NBA but because people felt the need to find more reasons to credit LeBron The ability to do it gained almost mythical status.


It always just made me wonder did the people who were so blown away never see Shawn Marion play the Rockets and guard both Tmac and Yao Ming? I know a lot of them and a lot of you wouldn’t remember Derek McKey, Gary Payton and Nate McMillan, giving guards trying to bring a ball up hell 70 feet from the basket and Derek being able to run down and guard Hakeem the same play.

But you remember Marion. You remember TMac guarding guards, but also guarding Dirk. You may not remember Anthony Mason guarding Jordan and Shaq. But you’ve seen PJ Tucker guard bigs and points. Hell I’ve seen Jrue Holiday guard centers.

with a few exceptions centers aren’t both physical and skilled anymore.

A good number are unofficially playing “Dunker” on offense just three to slip in unnoticed now and then and shoot 72% off gimme dunks and layups.

Putting aside the outliers like Jokic and Embiid are we ready to stop acting like it’s weird for a quick or strong wing to be able to guard almost the entire league?

It’s never been easier. You aren’t gonna play, Shaq, Hakeem, Drob, Ewing, Zo, Smits, and so on who will really attack a mismatch.

With the number of todays bigs I’ve seen not try to score on a point guard one on one?

Is it time to retire “He defense 1-5” as the sign of a defensive god?

Still admirable of course.

A desired trait.

But I think we can shelf it as the ultimate in defensive wizardry.

[Real Men Wear Green]

Ḍisagree with the idea Rodman's versatility wasn't acknowledged and appreciated. His lifestyle and alternate sexuality definitely was not accepted and along with his crazy incidents his trade value was tanked (Bulls got him for Will Perdue) but he made AllNBA twice and got on that 75th anniversary team. If he acted like Grant Hill he would have been allstar every year of the Bull threepeat.

Is it time to retire “He defense 1-5” as the sign of a defensive god? let's hold off on that until I can't use it to argue for tatum anymore. He should be able to defend the point guard end of that until he's 33, so another 7 years please.

[sdot_thadon]

It’s never been easier. You aren’t gonna play, Shaq, Hakeem, Drob, Ewing, Zo, Smits, and so on who will really attack a mismatch.

It's as strong a case for "you had to be there" as any. I agree with most of your post aside from the quoted. I've been a firm beleiver that it's more difficult to be an elite defender now than previous eras before no touch rules came into play. And regardless of guys doing it in previous eras it's still a thing to be admired, specifically in an era so weak defensively overall. And let's not lose sight of being able to survive a possession here and there definitely don't measure up to guys taking mismatches for entire quarters or even games.

[tontoz]

To be fair Rodman's role changed as he got older and put on weight. He wasn't guarding centers much in his early years. Probably the biggest guy he guarded back then was Bird.

Rodman was in his 7th season when Shaq was a rookie.

[Kblaze8855]

It's as strong a case for "you had to be there" as any. I agree with most of your post aside from the quoted. I've been a firm beleiver that it's more difficult to be an elite defender now than previous eras before no touch rules came into play. And regardless of guys doing it in previous eras it's still a thing to be admired, specifically in an era so weak defensively overall. And let's not lose sight of being able to survive a possession here and there definitely don't measure up to guys taking mismatches for entire quarters or even games.




Im not talking the difficulty of playing D then vs now. I’m saying smaller players don’t have to worry as much about a size mismatch because teams don’t care to exploit it for the purpose of scoring. You mostly just get pushed around for rebounds. If you were going to put your wing on every center every night, he would run into far fewer who would take advantage of it to score on that mismatch.

Decades ago a small guard on a good center would almost automatically get backed down. Just on principal. I think my breaking point was watching Steph Curry guarding Al Horford, and the Celtics not even attempt to get him the ball.

Straight bums 30 years ago would get given the ball if the other teams best player were a small guard and he was isolated on your center.

It just isn’t a focus. And that’s…whatever. I don’t care about the better or worse aspect.

I’m just saying they will let you get away with it at a much greater rate.

[Kblaze8855]

To be fair Rodman's role changed as he got older and put on weight. He wasn't guarding centers much in his early years. Probably the biggest guy he guarded back then was Bird.

Rodman was in his 7th season when Shaq was a rookie.


Rodman is a weird case to begin with. He was like 25 or 26 as a rookie like Mutombo was. We probably never saw his peak athletic ability.

[Kblaze8855]

Ḍisagree with the idea Rodman's versatility wasn't acknowledged and appreciated. His lifestyle and alternate sexuality definitely was not accepted and along with his crazy incidents his trade value was tanked (Bulls got him for Will Perdue) but he made AllNBA twice and got on that 75th anniversary team. If he acted like Grant Hill he would have been allstar every year of the Bull threepeat.
let's hold off on that until I can't use it to argue for tatum anymore. He should be able to defend the point guard end of that until he's 33, so another 7 years please.



his defense was appreciated, of course. He won the defensive player of the year. I’m saying that he and all the other people who got it either the entire or almost the entire NBA didn’t have that mythical status because of it.

It wasn’t seen as something amazing. Like I said, it was more changing the matchup than switching. Somebody gets going you never know who might get put on them to change the look. Mchale be on Jordan or Oakley.

Not so much for the whole game, but the whole idea of individual stoppers has kind of faded away. Teams are content to let you choose your matchup in a lot of situations so you don’t have to guard one person the whole game.

The idea of a Bruce Bowen, who takes an assignment and will do his best to be his shadow? There are people who have that mentality but the way offenses are run these days teams focus on switching.

[sdot_thadon]

Im not talking the difficulty of playing D then vs now. I’m saying smaller players don’t have to worry as much about a size mismatch because teams don’t care to exploit it for the purpose of scoring. You mostly just get pushed around for rebounds. If you were going to put your wing on every center every night, he would run into far fewer who would take advantage of it to score on that mismatch.

Decades ago a small guard on a good center would almost automatically get backed down. Just on principal. I think my breaking point was watching Steph Curry guarding Al Horford, and the Celtics not even attempt to get him the ball.

Straight bums 30 years ago would get given the ball if the other teams best player were a small guard and he was isolated on your center.

It just isn’t a focus. And that’s…whatever. I don’t care about the better or worse aspect.

I’m just saying they will let you get away with it at a much greater rate.

Yeah well that much is definitely true i Blame the game becoming more and more perimeter oriented until we get to todays game, where traditional bigs are thought useless to a degree. That also got me thinking about the whole concept of "small forward" wherever the league turned into an iso score fest in the early 2000s everybody wanted perimeter guys that could defend the wing and didn't care so much for that versatility anymore. Who were the last of the Mohicans as sf? Gerald Wallace? Maybe Josh Smith? Marion obviously. Any guy that comes in with that all around elite ability will be heralded because it got phased out of the game.

And Dennis was what happened when a supreme athlete decides to focus his ability strictly for defense instead of practicing iso moves. When Luke goes darkside lol.

[Im Still Ballin]

What about Bo Outlaw? Chuck Daly said he was like a mini-Rodman who could block shots better.

[90sgoat]

Unpopular opinion is that Shaq wasn't very skilled when he came into the league. He even said so himself, that he looked at Hakeem and D-Rob and decided he couldn't beat them on speed or skill but he could beat them on size.