You would think that if teams can cover up for guys like Roberson and Allen on offense, you would be able to make Rodman work in today’s game.

You know, but that’s why I don’t think it’s even a big question, because wasn’t it like this when he played too?

Rodman was a part of some pretty fantastic teams (I even looked it up, only twice in his career he was in a team with a losing record, his last season with the Pistons when that core was done, and his very last, 38 year old season with Dallas, both 40-42) that could always compensate for his flaws and use his abilities.

It’s always been like this, it’s not a feature of today’s NBA. This is a guy who played his entire career with hall of famers who excelled at what he couldn’t provide for the team, but he also provided major contributions. Specially the 97-98 Bulls team that didn’t have Pippen for half a season and still won 62 games would not have been nearly as good if it weren’t for him. Yes, you have to surround a guy like him with compensating parts, but he also compensated for a lot of his teammates flaws in his best areas of the game.

Normally you want more balanced players, but when you have a guy that’s great at something, that allows you to put another “specialist” on the court with him that doesn’t have that skill at the typically desired level. The idea would be to give Rodman the role of “rebounding” and count on him to do such a great job, you could put players on the court with him that are perhaps a little weak in that area but that bring something else to the table at a very high level.

As @43 said, Roberson gets a lot of minutes. You can get away with that when you have Westbrook and George on your team. If you don’t have any really good scorers, then his lack of scoring becomes a bigger drag and problem.

Yes, Rodman couldn’t shoot and wasn’t a great passer or even a presence on offense outside of (the very valuable) offensive rebounds, but he would be one player out of 5 on the court. What he brought in terms of defense and rebounding was so transcendent that there’s no way you can’t compensate for his flaws in other ways to accommodate his great skills, specially if we’re talking about him on a team like Golden State. They would be impossible to score on, the best rebounding team in the league and still have more than enough space to shoot and drive with just Rodman clogging the lanes.

It’s the same thing as the argument that all slow defensive centers simply can’t stay on the court against the Warriors so they’re useless. The Warriors are one of the best teams ever and they won’t last forever, and even against them there might be ways to utilize such players in effective ways. Just because it didn’t happen with the particular opponents GSW has faced doesn’t mean direct correlation to “x can’t play at all against the Warriors”. I just see there arguments as too catastrophic and decisive to be honest.

I really think of Rodman working as a 6’7” version of Clint Capela with super human strength. You have a guy who can lock down anybody and rebound everything that doesn’t go in the basket. I don’t know how you don’t find playing time in any era for a guy like that.

Next.