John Salley has made the case for LeBron James against Dennis Rodman, a conversation that has been around the NBA for some time now. Rodman was one of the best defenders the league has ever seen and fans, as well as media members, have wondered if he could actually defend and stop LeBron James.
Rodman made it clear that he wouldn’t have problems ‘locking’ Bron but not everybody thinks like that. Salley is one of those and he recently explained why. During an interview with VladTV, the former Detroit Piston tipped LeBron James as the most complete player in NBA history given all his talents and how he can do everything on the court.
“There’s been Bernard King, who is the closest I’ve seen LeBron get to, it’s been Magic Johnson being able to dribble and pass and see the floor and get his teammates involved. There’s been Kobe Bryant with a laser focus, a Michael Jordan who took everything from Dr. J and all the people he watched. But LeBron is all of it. The difference is, the referees on the NBA is changed its way, they’re not caring about the defense. They want more points because now this NBA sport is focused on international play, not the down, dirty, East Coast’s physical and West Coast’s finesse… So I’m glad Dennis feels that and Dennis would guard him greatly…”
Moreover, Salley agreed with Gilbert Arenas saying Rodman wouldn’t have much to do against LeBron given all the changes of rules and how gifted the Los Angeles Lakers superstar is.
“All that Gilbert said was true, hand check changed everything. With a physical play, being able to touch like that, they got rid of that because it worked in Dennis’s favor. But as far as Dennis being 6’7”, we called Dennis on the Pistons… big man. So he’s a big man guard… But Dennis was the fastest player, the most unbelievable physical specimen to play basketball. Dennis in his prime, there’s never been anybody like LeBron.”
Although Dennis was something great to watch and he made life very hard for a lot of players, not a lot of people are convinced he could have locked up LeBron. The King is a monster and you can count with one hand the players that have been able to stop him during his career.
