Dennis Rodman on the 1996 Chicago Bulls

[Xiao Yao You]

Some good points brought up so far but one very important question not mentioned yet is, put Rodman on the 98 Jazz roster, how. many. ringz?

The Jazz would have never had Rodman on their roster at that time.

[Soundwave]

I truly dislike this bit of propaganda Mj fans perpetrate now days. Mj did not shoulder that much of the scoring load because he HAD to, that's bs. He literally had teammates bitching and moaning behind the scenes of the 1st 3peat about shot attempts. He also actively pursued scoring numbers and scoring titles. A system literally needed to be put in place to limit his grip on the offense lol. Some of you guys claimed to have watched it live and for the life of me I can't see how you guys don't remember him going back into games well out of hand sometimes to jack up 7 or 8 shots in a row to get his average for the night. Whether hes your GOAT or right there up top doesnt really matter but its time to start calling it like it really was fellas. Mythology doesn't really work well in 2023.

Bull shit, the 80s Lakers, Pistons, Celtics all had at least 1-2 legit more scoring options than the Bulls.

80s Lakers had Kareem, Magic, Worthy, Byron Scott, even Bob McAdoo for a while who could hit double digit scoring averages in 1985 and Michael Cooper who could also pitch in.

80s Celtics had Bird, McHale, Parrish, D. Johnson, even guys beyond that like Ainge and Walton in '86 who could play.

Bad Boy Pistons had Isiah, Dumars, Vinny Johnson, Mark Aguire, Adrian Dantley who all average over 13 ppg and then had OK role players in Rick Mahorn and I'm not even mentioning Rodman.

Those are deep teams.

Shit even the 95-96 Orlando Magic were deeper than the Bulls ... Shaq, Penny, Grant, Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott.

The Bulls were always a 12-15 ppg scorer below those teams. The deepest Bulls team was actually probably the 93 team not the 96 72-win one, as BJ Armstong was improving, but then they lost Armstrong because of the expansion draft in 1995.

So when people keep saying "expansion duh hur!!!!", that hurt the Bulls too, BJ Armstrong was the 93 Bulls 4th leading scorer, just 1 ppg behind Horace Grant as a the 3rd leading scorer.

The Bulls never gave Jordan some super loaded offensively talented lineup like Bird and Magic and even Isiah Thomas enjoyed.

[97 bulls]

Bull shit, the 80s Lakers, Pistons, Celtics all had at least 1-2 legit more scoring options than the Bulls.

80s Lakers had Kareem, Magic, Worthy, Byron Scott, even Bob McAdoo for a while who could hit double digit scoring averages in 1985 and Michael Cooper who could also pitch in.

80s Celtics had Bird, McHale, Parrish, D. Johnson, even guys beyond that like Ainge and Walton in '86 who could play.

Bad Boy Pistons had Isiah, Dumars, Vinny Johnson, Mark Aguire, Adrian Dantley who all average over 13 ppg and then had OK role players in Rick Mahorn and I'm not even mentioning Rodman.

Those are deep teams.

Shit even the 95-96 Orlando Magic were deeper than the Bulls ... Shaq, Penny, Grant, Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott.

The Bulls were always a 12-15 ppg scorer below those teams. The deepest Bulls team was actually probably the 93 team not the 96 72-win one, as BJ Armstong was improving, but then they lost Armstrong because of the expansion draft in 1995.

So when people keep saying "expansion duh hur!!!!", that hurt the Bulls too, BJ Armstrong was the 93 Bulls 4th leading scorer, just 1 ppg behind Horace Grant as a the 3rd leading scorer.

The Bulls never gave Jordan some super loaded offensively talented lineup like Bird and Magic and even Isiah Thomas enjoyed.

Are you not accounting for pace? The 80s was a lot more uptempo than the mid 90s. Put the 96 Bulls in the mid 80s and there's no doubt that their number look like the following roughly


Jordan 34ppg
Pippen 24ppg
Kukoc 18ppg
Harper 15ppg
Longley 12ppg
Kerr 10ppg.

The big issue with the Bulls when compared to other teams is that Jordan took so many shots.

I don't see how the Bulls were loaded. They have 4 Hall of Famers on their team. The best rebounder ever, the most versatile player ever, the best 3pt shooter ever statistically, and they proved that they could remain competitive without Jordan. Something the Celtics Pistons and Lakers couldn't do. I mean, if those team were soooo mich better and deeper than the Bulls, why didn't they get close to 70 wins in an expansion year? The best the Pistons could muster was 63 if I remember correctly. Not to mention, the Bulls had a better record vs the non expansion teams than they did the expansion teams.

[Street Hunger]

Rodman and Horace Grant were pretty perfect Bulls PF role players.

[Reggie43]

Yeah the obvious thing is that the Bulls had decent depth relative to their era but compared to those great 80s teams its not even close.

[97 bulls]

Yeah the obvious thing is that the Bulls had decent depth relative to their era but compared to those great 80s teams its not even close.

What do you think would be the average ppg of the players on the 96 Bulls if they played in the mid 80s? Please give am average for each of the top 7 players.

[Reggie43]

What do you think would be the average ppg of the players on the 96 Bulls if they played in the mid 80s? Please give am average for each of the top 7 players.

They would definitely score more but it wouldnt make them better than they actually are especially the role players and bench guys.

[BigShotBob]

I truly dislike this bit of propaganda Mj fans perpetrate now days. Mj did not shoulder that much of the scoring load because he HAD to, that's bs. He literally had teammates bitching and moaning behind the scenes of the 1st 3peat about shot attempts. He also actively pursued scoring numbers and scoring titles. A system literally needed to be put in place to limit his grip on the offense lol. Some of you guys claimed to have watched it live and for the life of me I can't see how you guys don't remember him going back into games well out of hand sometimes to jack up 7 or 8 shots in a row to get his average for the night. Whether hes your GOAT or right there up top doesnt really matter but its time to start calling it like it really was fellas. Mythology doesn't really work well in 2023.

Easy to bring up mythology when you flat out lie. MJ had the scoring burden because he had to. Pippen is a life time 16 ppg scorer. Nobody else on the Bulls averaged more than that. At Pippen's best when Mike was gone he averaged 22.

The end.

[97 bulls]

They would definitely score more but it wouldnt make them better than they actually are especially the role players and bench guys.

So give me a rough estimate please.

[97 bulls]

Easy to bring up mythology when you flat out lie. MJ had the scoring burden because he had to. Pippen is a life time 16 ppg scorer. Nobody else on the Bulls averaged more than that. At Pippen's best when Mike was gone he averaged 22.

The end.

That's not true. He said himself that he wanted to lead the league in scoring. He said all he had to do was average 8ppg a quarter.

[warriorfan]

Are you not accounting for pace? The 80s was a lot more uptempo than the mid 90s. Put the 96 Bulls in the mid 80s and there's no doubt that their number look like the following roughly


Jordan 34ppg
Pippen 24ppg
Kukoc 18ppg
Harper 15ppg
Longley 12ppg
Kerr 10ppg.

The big issue with the Bulls when compared to other teams is that Jordan took so many shots.

I don't see how the Bulls were loaded. They have 4 Hall of Famers on their team. The best rebounder ever, the most versatile player ever, the best 3pt shooter ever statistically, and they proved that they could remain competitive without Jordan. Something the Celtics Pistons and Lakers couldn't do. I mean, if those team were soooo mich better and deeper than the Bulls, why didn't they get close to 70 wins in an expansion year? The best the Pistons could muster was 63 if I remember correctly. Not to mention, the Bulls had a better record vs the non expansion teams than they did the expansion teams.

Whut? So kukoc and harper would score 30% and 50% more respectively while Jordan would only score 10% more?



this entire post is hilarious

[97 bulls]

Whut? So kukoc and harper would score 30% and 50% more respectively while Jordan would only score 10% more?



this entire post is hilarious

Yes because Jordan only scored so much because he was after that scoring title. So the others are the ones that would be more effected. With more opportunities the other players would get more chances.

[97 bulls]

This is what Jordan told Carmello Anthony with regards on how to average 30ppg.

Carmelo recalls how Jordan broke down scoring to him by quarter.

“Say you average about 28, there’s an easy way to get it. He (Jordan) said, ‘break down 7 points a quarter. That’s 2-3 layups, 2-3 free throws. You get hot one quarter, you might have 11, 12, 13 (points) one quarter, now second quarter you can pace, you get your 14 (points) in two quarters.’


So Jordan scoring so much was never about needing to. It was about trying to get over that 30ppg threshold.

[sdot_thadon]

Bull shit, the 80s Lakers, Pistons, Celtics all had at least 1-2 legit more scoring options than the Bulls.

80s Lakers had Kareem, Magic, Worthy, Byron Scott, even Bob McAdoo for a while who could hit double digit scoring averages in 1985 and Michael Cooper who could also pitch in.

80s Celtics had Bird, McHale, Parrish, D. Johnson, even guys beyond that like Ainge and Walton in '86 who could play.

Bad Boy Pistons had Isiah, Dumars, Vinny Johnson, Mark Aguire, Adrian Dantley who all average over 13 ppg and then had OK role players in Rick Mahorn and I'm not even mentioning Rodman.

Those are deep teams.

Shit even the 95-96 Orlando Magic were deeper than the Bulls ... Shaq, Penny, Grant, Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott.

The Bulls were always a 12-15 ppg scorer below those teams. The deepest Bulls team was actually probably the 93 team not the 96 72-win one, as BJ Armstong was improving, but then they lost Armstrong because of the expansion draft in 1995.

So when people keep saying "expansion duh hur!!!!", that hurt the Bulls too, BJ Armstrong was the 93 Bulls 4th leading scorer, just 1 ppg behind Horace Grant as a the 3rd leading scorer.

The Bulls never gave Jordan some super loaded offensively talented lineup like Bird and Magic and even Isiah Thomas enjoyed.

None of those teams had a number 1 shooting enough times to average over 30 a game either, so those opportunities went to guys who make up what you call "depth". It definitely doesn't work both ways, you can't have a guy shooting 25 plus times a game and have those extra guys averaging double figures. It was a huge part of the criticism thrown his way early in his career. Also big time bullet point: he was seemingly one man down. In comparison to other alltime greats teams, but he was also one man up basically on any team he faced during their championship runs. He almost always had more than what he faced.

[sdot_thadon]

Easy to bring up mythology when you flat out lie. MJ had the scoring burden because he had to. Pippen is a life time 16 ppg scorer. Nobody else on the Bulls averaged more than that. At Pippen's best when Mike was gone he averaged 22.

The end.

Lies? OK. So during 91-98 Pippen averaged 20 a game. Grant and Armstrong were begging for more shots during the 1st 3peat. In 94 without Mj, Scottie made them both Allstars.....