Rodman Review: The Pistons Era.

 

 This August, while the NBA slows to a crawl, Mojo Hoops looks back at the peaks of Dennis Rodman's brilliant NBA career. If anyone epitomizes the hustle, defense & originality of a Mojo Hoops type player, Rodman is that baller. Each piece will focus on a different stage of Rodman's unusual NBA journey and beyond. First up, the Pistons years. 

 ESPN's Classic Sports channel recently aired a game from March 4, 1992 where 6'7" Dennis Rodman, the Worm, grabbed 34 rebounds against the Indiana Pacers. He set a team record for the Pistons and no NBA player has rebounded 34 or more in a game since. 

 Check out this edited version of the game featured on Gremlin's Youtube channel.

 When Rodman learned that he broke the Pistons' team record held by Bob Lanier, he cried and said, "I have just been in the right place at the right time. I got emotional because when you work so hard to accomplish something, it is a great feeling when it finally pays off."

 The Pacers only managed 38 rebounds as a team and lost 110-107 in OT. Their coach Bob Hill said, "Rebounding took its toll. We didn't keep them off the boards, but Rodman's a freak of nature. He keeps coming and coming, like Joe Frazier when he fought Ali."

 1992 was Rodman's breakout year as one of the greatest rebounders in NBA history. He grabbed a career high 18.7 rpg and led the league in rebounding for the first of 7 straight years. In the last 35 years, the closest any other player has come to that average is Ben Wallace's 15.4 in 2003, over three fewer fewer boards per game.

 Rodman was a two time champ with the Pistons. He had already won Defensive Player of the Year twice before taking over as the best rebounder of his era. A strong on-ball defender, the Worm mastered mind games early in his career, slithering into the psyche of opponents who were distracted by his menacing techniques.

 Watch this clip from November 30, 1990 where Rodman riles Barkley into an elbow and an ejection in crunch time. 

He even made the free throws.  

 Rodman was a freak in Detroit with his short-shorts and writings in his hair. He'd already developed high-kicking rebounding techniques and a rep for being dirty as one of the Bad Boys on the Pistons. But he still seemed like a pretty regular dude overall. 

 That version of Dennis Rodman died in 1993 while Rodman slept in his truck with a loaded shotgun on his lap after contemplating suicide. In his book Bad As I Wanna Be, Rodman wrote, "I decided that instead (of killing myself) I was gonna kill the impostor that was leading Dennis Rodman to a place he didn't want to go.... So I just said, 'I'm going to live my life the way I want to live it and be happy doing it. I killed the person I didn't want to be.'"

 On October 1, 1993, the Pistons traded the new Dennis to the Spurs. The next Rodman Review will feature the Worm's adventures with the Admiral and the Deacon in San Antonio.