Dennis Rodman is one of the most decorated players from the ’90s. The Worm wasn’t flashy on the court and didn’t have the offensive skills that his contemporaries had, but he was one of the most hard-nosed players the game has ever seen. Rodman is a former Defensive Player of the Year and won 5 championships in his career, 2 with Detroit and 3 with Chicago.
If a team was acquiring Dennis Rodman, it was solely for his defensive and rebounding ability. For as good as Rodman was as a rebounder, he was a liability offensively. He has multiple 0-point games where he played big minutes, primarily because he didn’t have any polished scoring skills.
Even in those 0-point games, Rodman would be active on the glass and grab rebounds to generate extra possessions for his team. That made him invaluable and kept his place on the court even when he wasn’t able to score. Rodman scored over 20 points in his career just 19 times (16 in the regular season, 3 in playoffs) but managed to have 158 games with 20+ rebounds.
Rodman has the most 20+ rebound games in NBA history by a comfortable margin. The closest competition he has comes from an active player in the new Chicago Bulls signing, Andre Drummond. Drummond has 88 games like this. Dwight Howard is 3rd with 82 games with 20+ rebounds.
Rodman’s highest scoring game came in 1991 against the Denver Nuggets. He scored 34 points that night, but his impact was best felt on the glass as he pulled down 23 rebounds. Even on a career-high scoring night, Rodman worked just as hard on rebounding as he did on scoring. Many of his scoring opportunities were created from well-timed offensive rebounds. He had incredible rebounding nights against almost every NBA team.
We rarely see specialists like Rodman in the game today. Andre Drummond has been the closest thing we have gotten to ‘The Worm’, but he is a center and not as scrappy as Rodman. With players needing incredible versatility nowadays, we may never see someone like Rodman again.
