Dennis Rodman, as one of the NBA's 75 superstars, won 7 rebounding titles, 5 championships, and 2 best defensive players in the NBA that year.
But Rodman himself often said that he only scored four or five points in a single game for O'Neal's defense, which could limit Karl Malone, but he was exaggerating.
单场比赛说服力不大
Now people usually think that Rodman's good defense of O'Neal is a typical example, Rodman during the Bulls to defend the Lakers' O'Neal! The scene is indeed very contrasting: in the first half, the Bulls did not defend O'Neal, and O'Neal easily scored more than 20 points; in the second half, the Bulls replaced Rodman, O'Neal "failed"! No more points were scored, and the Lakers also lost the game.
Looking at the career confrontation between O'Neal and Rodman, O'Neal can average 26 points and 13 rebounds per game. O'Neal won this statistic, and it is not objective to say that Rodman can prevent O'Neal.
With the same logic, Rodman did his best to defend Carl Malone, but there is no sufficient data to support it. In the two seasons when the Jazz and Bulls competed for the championship, Malone's performance was very stable!
单一防守型球星的价值评估
Rodman is, of course, a superstar, as we said at the beginning. But he's a single-minded defensive star, which means he's only 50 percent dominating the pitch. Considering that the Bulls are Jordan's team and Rodman is the identity of the three leaders, there is still a gap between him and the big leaders of the team like O'Neal and Malone.
Rodman is ranked 63rd out of the top 75 stars, O'Neal is 8th and Malone is 16th. This ranking still intuitively reflects the gap.