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• Friday, September 29, 2006 01:48 PM

  In praise of Rodman

  I think the essential distinction you miss between Rodman and Owens is that almost invariably Owens is offerring up some sort of excuse for idiotic/selfish/stupid behavior. Rodman just seemed to glory in being a misfit, and his antics almost NEVER had anything to do with either (a) his sport, or (b) his teammates, both of which TO has castigated, ridiculed, and generally dissed like school on saturday.

  Your Sabremetrical analysis of Offensive rebounds is somewhat flawed by the way, in that teams like the mid 90's Nets and Warriors were invariably launching huge numbers of 3s late in the game in order to play 2nd team catch up, which leads to a lot of "garbage" rebounds out by the top of the key or in the corners. A better way to look at that statistic might be to look at the championship teams (or the contenders) from those years and find out not who led the league, but were there teams that were consistently good that sucked at rebounding? Also, check and see how the people who Rodman played against did compared to their rebounding/scoring averages vs the rest of the league. Did Malone score/rebound more or less when being guarded/playing against the bulls? Shaq? Hakeem? Barkley?

  I think a more appropriate cross-sport comparison for Rodman (although the offensive/defensive comparison is so backwards as to be laughable) is Manny Ramirez. As Bill Simmons said in his chat on ESPN the other day, "Manny's not a cancer, he's just goofy." (I'm paraphrasing, sue me if I got that wrong.) Rodman was entirely professional once he got on the court (well, except for the spitting thing, and maybe a few choice comments to refs), in much the same way that Manny is entirely workmanlike at the plate (not to mention "defensively differently abled"). Rodman knew, and Manny knows, what he was/is being paid to accomplish - (Rodman - defense/rebounds)/(Manny - hits/runs/rbis) - and went about that work itself with little or no distraction to himself and or others. Plus they both have terrible hair.

  TO has been an absolute poison off the field to the point where it has completely destroyed chemistry for the last three teams he played for. His on field prowess notwithstanding (and I consider him an absolutely GREAT receiver by all standards physical), he has been an overall negative, by a wide margin, for all of his recent teams.

  Rodman, by all accounts, was thought of positively by his teammates, if maybe with somewhat of a raised or furrowed brow.

  I don't think, also, that you could overestimate the importance of "knowing your place" on a team with Jordan. Had Rodman had some more thoughts of offensive glory (and would anyone question that he was a good enough athelete to have been a more potent offensive player?), he would have upset a balance that produced some of the greatest team performances of all time by a team with such a dominant player, THE dominant player of all time in his sport. I think that is a vast improvement over TO who is trying too hard to be MJ, and ending up as Rodman, as opposed to Rodman, who never seemed to have any thoughts about being anyone but Rodman.

  I can't think of a worse teammate in modern sports than TO. He's like the anti-Rudy. There really isn't anyone to compare him to.

  —nick Read nick's other letters
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