PicoBlog

Scottie Pippen’s new book release brought a classic debate to the forefront: Scottie Pippen vs. Michael Jordan. Ben Guest and I wound up debating/discussing this on the Boxscore Geeks show. The reality from an aggregate is that this isn’t a debate. Pippen is an all-time great, but Jordan is just better. Ben offered the best out you could get, from age 31 on, Pippen was a better player in the aggregate. I’m sure Pippen will take it! But Ben threw a curveball, albeit another classic one. Rodman vs. Jordan. This showed up prominently in the book “Wages of Wins”, and also in Ben Morris’ giant study on Dennis Rodman.

For non-analytics heads, this argument seems absurd. MJ finished his career with over 30,000 points, over a 30 points per game average, five MVPs, and six Finals MVPs. Dennis Rodman didn’t reach 7,000 points in his career. He has a total of two All-Star appearances. Many refer to him as a role player. Of course, the easy follow-up. Rodman has two Defensive Player of the Year awards and led the NBA in rebounds seven consecutive seasons. And, it turns out, gives a genuine case for being the better player than MJ. Let’s go!

Metric of choice? As always, Wins Produced (WP or WP48 for per 48 minutes)! This estimates the total number of wins a player contributes to their team. The game variant of this game is called Points over Par, which calculates the margin the player is responsible for. If the player played with an average team against an average team on a neutral court, the Points over Par is the amount you’d expect their team to win or lose by.

One small note, I am using game-by-game Wins Produced numbers for both Dennis Rodman and Michael Jordan. These may not align perfectly with numbers on Boxscore Geeks. This year, I plan to get more of these live and available.

When talking with Ben, I knew MJ crossed the 200 career Wins Produced mark and thought Dennis Rodman didn’t. I was incorrect. The numbers:

• Dennis Rodman career: 207.2 Wins, 28,838 Minutes, 0.345 WP48

• Michael Jordan career: 202.7 Wins, 41,013 Minutes, 0.237 WP48

One aspect of Michael Jordan’s career is how short it was. He missed most of his second season with injuries. He spent three years in college. In the modern NBA, he’d be a one-and-done player. Notoriously he tried for almost two seasons to play baseball. Due to the NBA lockout, he walked away from basketball a little early before returning to the Wizards. Even with those caveats, he outpaces Dennis Rodman by over 10,000 minutes. And Dennis Rodman still barely wins on totals wins and easily wins per minute. Surprising and pretty cut and dry oddly.

• Dennis Rodman’s best season: 1991-1992, 27.4 Wins, 0.400 WP48

• Michael Jordan’s best season: 1988-1989, 26.4 Wins, 0.389 WP48

The tiebreak goes to Rodman, but these are close enough I’m cool calling it a tie. This will likely rile many readers because Jordan did everything in 1988-1989. He scored 32 points per game on 61.4% True Shooting. He got eight assists, eight rebounds, and three steals a game. Jordan finished 2nd in MVP and 5th in Defensive Player of the Year voting. Voters sadly overrate team performance, and Michael Jordan had won both the awards the previous season, with his team going down in wins, which hurt his perception. Regardless, MJ was probably one of the closest things to a perfect all-around basketball player that season (we can ignore three-point shooting since the NBA didn’t care about that until the 90s).

In 1992? Rodman’s overall stats were okay. He was an efficient scorer but with below-average volume. Rodman was a decent passer for his position by assist-turnover. His steals, blocks, and fouls were all decent. What he did that was so ridiculous was rebound. At 1,530 boards, 523 offensive, 1007 defensive, Dennis Rodman hit rebound numbers the NBA hadn’t hit since the 70s. Adjusted for his era, this is probably one of the most ludicrous NBA performances ever. And indeed, 27.4 Wins in a single season, at least by numbers, is the best three-point era NBA season ever.

Whenever numbers rear their heads in debates, infamously, the argument is that things are not captured in the boxscore. Defense is notorious for this. And Dennis Rodman was known as a great defender. Of course, floor spacing, etc., on offense come up too. And Michael Jordan is perhaps the greatest volume shooter in NBA history. How well MJ and Rodman impacted team chemistry? Well, that’s a tie too! So with that in mind, as mentioned, I’m okay with a tie. But it’s worth noting just how good 1992 Rodman was, and it highlights things that can be hard to see by conventional methods.

• Dennis Rodman [1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1998], 124.8 Wins, 0.364 WP48

• Michael Jordan [1985, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992] 127.9 Wins, 0.322 WP48

A reminder, the Brocato Prime is a concept I’ve taken from James Brocato. The idea is, you take a player’s six best seasons, non-contiguous. This helps get a picture of a player’s peak while leaving out outlier and injury seasons. MJ and Rodman’s peaks overlap pretty nicely. Michael Jordan wins on, well, wins. Rodman wins per minute, which is a running theme!

Another classic issue we know in the NBA is the respect scorers get versus “role players.” In 1992 Rodman got 40 minutes a game, but for most of his 20s, he was below 30 minutes a game. He didn't even have a season until his last when he started every game he played — it was only twelve games for the Mavericks before he was waived. I’d argue 1992 showed you could have been playing Rodman more minutes in his prime, and he’d have done just fine. Hell, he played more minutes per game with the Bulls in his 30s than Pistons in his 20s!

Here’s a silly test that also highlights why MJ often comes up in arguments as the clear winner.

On March 28th, 1990, MJ put up a 69 point game on over 70% True Shooting. He also grabbed 18 boards, six assists, four steals, and a block for good measure. It took overtime, but it’s the best game in Jordan’s career by raw output, worth over a complete win on its own, or +30.1 Points over Par.

If we restrict ourselves to non-overtime games, In a 20 point beatdown of the Hornets on April 4th, 1989, MJ put up a 30-12-10 triple-double, also on 70% plus True Shooting to go with six steals. It was worth 0.84 Wins or a margin of +23 by Points over Par.

All told, MJ has eight games in his career with a PoP of +20 or more, one in the playoffs, 5/13/1989 against the Knicks.

Rodman’s best game? Eighteen points, 27 rebounds, and five assists in a 20 point win over the Magic on February 2nd, 1992. The real trick? He did it in 29 minutes of play! It was worth around +22 PoP. The only +20 PoP game of his career.

In many ways, this sums up the difference between MJ and Rodman. Per-minute Rodman was so good that he still put up a first-ballot Hall of Fame worthy career by the end of his career (it took two years to get in, voters are wrong.) MJ got tons of minutes and tons of shots, and it was indeed the right call. Some injuries and other off-the-court issues gave him a shortened but still stellar NBA career.

However, when we tack up the regular season with Rodman versus Jordan, and I have to pick one? Ben swayed me. I’ll take Rodman! Shocker. That said, this article will have a part two on why everyone goes for Jordan - the playoffs! We’ll see how Rodman stacks up!

-Dre

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