Commentary
Not even close.
Results
Detroit wins, four games to none.
Next Round
Detroit faces the winner of the All-Time Nets vs. All-Time Clippers.
More Commentary
Since Dennis Rodman is a key member of the Pistons, this seems like a good time to contextualize his incredible rebounding totals. Rodman almost had two different pro careers. In his first incarnation, in his early years with Detroit, he was one of the most versatile defenders in NBA history, capable of guarding everyone from Michael Jordan to Magic Johnson. In his second act, he became obsessed with the art of rebounding. Many believe that he was the greatest ever at this skill, but the all-time rebounding numbers are skewed in favor of players who played in a faster-paced league. How did Rodman’s rebounding compare to his predecessors? Below are the best rebounding seasons for every player in history who has ever averaged over 17 rebounds per game. Note that each player only has his best season listed; Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell hold the 18 highest rebounding seasons in NBA history.
The numbers in this chart help to provide some context for the rebounding averages you see next to each player’s name. Team pace is an estimate of each team’s number of possessions per 48 minutes. In 1991-92, the Detroit Pistons pace was estimated at 91.6; compare this to Wilt Chamberlain’s record breaking 1960-61 campaign, when the Warriors were estimated to average 40 more possessions per game. Since rebounding numbers for opposing teams are not available in the basketball-reference.com database for early seasons, we calculated the average number of league rebounds per game in each year that is listed. Obviously, some teams played at faster and slower paces than their peers, but this provides a measure for the number of rebounds that were available in a typical NBA game in the year that is listed. In 1991-92, there were 87.3 rebounds per game (league wide), and Rodman’s 18.7 RPG accounted for 21.4 percent of all rebounds in a typical game. In the 1960-61 season, there were 146.6 rebounds per game! It’s not surprising that the 1960-61 season produced three players on this list (Chamberlain, Bob Pettit, and Elgin Baylor), each of whom had significantly lower percentages than Rodman. Since 1970-71, total rebound percentage can be tracked to measure the percentage of rebounds a player gathered while he was on the floor. Rodman grabbed over a quarter of the rebounds available in his 1991-92 season, which is three percentage points higher than Moses Malone in his incredible 1978-79 campaign. Finally, we have a look at the closest competitor in each season’s rebounds per game race. Only five players on this list actually led their league in rebounds per game; Nate Thurmond, Jerry Lucas, Pettit, Baylor, Walt Bellamy, Wes Unseld, and Maurice Stokes were all eclipsed by Chamberlain or Russell in their career-high seasons. Moses Malone had the widest disparity between his next closest competitor of all the other players on this list, while Chamberlain and Rodman had virtually identical leads in their rebounding races, despite Chamberlain’s higher raw totals.
The greatest rebounding seasons in NBA history, by raw averages, virtually all came in an era where the game was played at a breakneck pace, with a plethora of missed shots, which hardly resembles modern-day basketball. Rodman’s 1991-92 season, in which he averaged 18.7 RPG, came 13 seasons after the second most contemporary season on this list, Moses Malone’s 1978-79 campaign. While this is by no means a comprehensive analysis, it does help to show that Rodman’s 1991-92 season may have been the best career-high rebounding season in NBA history.
Oftentimes these sort of quantitative analysis will fail to mention that the team rebounds were included in the totals during the 60s, as opposed to the modern era (post merger).