As for the subjective claims that Rodman took rebounds from his teammates, I find them fairly non-germane. I address the ways he may have padded his rebound stats many times later in the series, indeed finding it likely that there was some artificial inflation, though also concluding that it doesn’t affect the bottom line.

Wilt Regular season:
1959-60 17.4
1960-61 17.4
1961-62 17.2
1962-63 17.5
1963-64 15.8
1964-65 16.0
1965-66 16.9
1966-67 16.8
1967-68 17.0
1968-69 15.3
1969-70 14.4
1970-71 14.2
1971-72 15.5
1972-73 15.2

AVG: 16.29

PER36: 12.81

Rodman Regular Season:
1986-87 4.0
1987-88 8.3
1988-89 8.8
1989-90 9.3
1990-91 11.9
1991-92 17.7
1992-93 17.5
1993-94 16.6
1994-95 16.7
1995-96 14.9
1996-97 16.2
1997-98 14.9
1998-99 11.1
1999-00 13.8

AVG: 12.71

PER36: 14.43

Rodman is still clearly ahead, of course there are reasons for that. Blatant stat-padding such as ripping rebounds out of teammates hands, not boxing out his man and going to the side he felt the ball would go to, missing layups and tip ins on purpose, aborting the offense, not coming on help defense and grabbing every end of quarter heave and free throw miss that he could. I’m not saying its never been done before, but it gives a good idea why he is such an outlier in the regular season and why he is only second in REB% in the playoffs.

Here are some quotes to back up this stat padding mentality that he had:
“I let Dennis Rodman get his rebounds and get out of his way . . . allow him to pad his rebound stats,” Pippen said. “I think, as a basketball team, we just have to get more hungry. Dennis is going to get his rebounds. I just have to be more aggressive and get mine as well. We need to go out to win and not go out for the stats.”

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-12-13/sports/9612130108_1_bulls-scottie-pippen-dennis-rodman

“Dennis is going to get that basketball at the cost of pulling it away from his teammate sometimes” – Phil Jackson

“It’s a passion for him, but sometimes a distraction,” Jackson says. “It borders on an obsession that can create an obstruction to a team. We always have to temper him as still being a part of the offense, even though you’re still doing your job–which is going to get rebounds. There are times when I’ve seen Dennis step from one side of the basket where his man is because the shot is there and he can get the high-percentage rebound. But the ball bounces right to his man for a layup. His instinct is to go to the high-percentage side to get that rebound.”

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-02-29/sports/9602290143_1_bulls-coach-phil-jackson-dennis-rodman-grab

“I mean, there are times when we’re fighting against him to get rebounds. Sometimes we’ll lose it out of bounds because we’re fighting him.” – Michael Jordan

From “In the Year of the Bull” by Rick Telander p212

(This is an article on how stat keeping is superstar-biased, not sure how accurate it is, but have a look at it)

Alex says, “is if a shot goes up and someone tips it and someone else recovers it, you can give it to either one. Rodman would get those all the time. Most callers will give it to the guy who actually gets possession. But that doesn’t mean a caller can’t give it to someone in a scrum who tipped it. What if Byron Scott retrieves it? Byron Scott doesn’t need the rebound.”

http://deadspin.com/5345287/the-confessions-of-an-nba-scorekeeper

I could find more, but you get the point. Much (but not all) of this was removed in the playoffs. How does Rodman stack up now?

Wilt playoffs:
1959-60 16.8
1960-61 14.9
1961-62 17.7
1963-64 18.1
1964-65 19.0
1965-66 21.7
1966-67 19.4
1967-68 18.1
1968-69 18.1
1969-70 17.2
1970-71 16.2
1971-72 17.1
1972-73 18.8

AVG: 17.97

PER36: 13.71

Rodman playoffs:
1986-87 4.6
1987-88 5.8
1988-89 9.6
1989-90 8.4
1990-91 12.0
1991-92 10.4
1993-94 15.8
1994-95 15.2
1995-96 14.4
1996-97 8.6
1997-98 12.4

AVG: 10.06

PER36: 12.80

WOW! Wilt Per36 minutes was actually a better rebounder than Dennis Rodman for his playoffs career! Rodman still might be a better rebounder some years than Wilt and still this isn’t quite as accurate as REB% but its still puts EVERYTHING in perspective. Especially since Wilt eclipses Rodman in nearly every facet of the game itself. Wilt even played 4 playoffs (where many of his games were played) after a career threatening injury.

This is only one of your arguments though, I can go on into more things like:
“There are a lot of ways to go, but I think there’s a certain necessary “suspension of disbelief” that we engage in whenever we argue that any player from a previous era was “better” than one from a later one, because the likely reality that our childhood heroes would be underdogs against today’s bench-warmers is untenable.”
And break it down why you are wrong. I can’t imagine Wilt the decathlete, the strongest man to play in the NBA, the high jumper having any problems against any centers, let alone bench warmers in todays game. Watch this just for some basics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4WZXiaDzyc
Anyways, your article was very interesting, and in fact made me want to delve into basketball statistics myself. You can email me at mnolan2218@gmail.com for more information like this. Thanks.

It is interesting, though very speculative. There is something to your observation that Rodman cleaned up large areas of the court, though in many ways I think this made his rebounding more energy-efficient. Rather than burning his energy battling to get a slightly better percentage of “hard” rebounds, he stepped into empty spaces to get a *much* better percentage of “easy” rebounds. The ball/player tracking study presented at last year’s Sloan conference lends some ancillary support to this theory, finding that proximate player density is the most predictive variable for who is most likely to grab a rebound. This suggests to me that a space-based rebounding strategy may be optimal.

As for transporting players backwards or forwards in time, that’s a metaphysical problem at the heart of all multi-era sports debates. There are a lot of ways to go, but I think there’s a certain necessary “suspension of disbelief” that we engage in whenever we argue that any player from a previous era was “better” than one from a later one, because the likely reality that our childhood heroes would be underdogs against today’s bench-warmers is untenable.

Great article.

With toys like PFR’s AV, I think the average blogger has a shot at assessing how well those trade can work. I made an attempt at it here:

http://codeandfootball.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/assessing-the-break-even-point-of-nfl-draft-trades/

I would be very curious if the correlation I found between draft choices and winning goes away as the conditions that led to overvaluation of first rounders decreases.

D-

If you read the last post in this series, you know that I agree MJ’s Win % diff is probably higher than Rodman’s (though, given sample sizes, it is not more statistically significant). I have also noted in several different places that I think Rodman has certain advantages in these comparisons: For example, he missed a relatively high percentage of games due to suspension rather than injury, and he didn’t stay around in the league several years past his prime as many other great players did. But the fact that there are large margins of error is offset by Rodman’s statistically extreme performance. The whole point of showing that he comes out on top in this reasonably broad pool of players isn’t to show that he is actually the best, but to show how unlikely it is that he wasn’t very very good.

This is such a cherry picking exercise that it doesn’t really mean a lot.