Isiah Thomas Explains How Dennis Rodman Made Rebounding A Science

Shandel Richardson | Jul 9, 2024

NBA great Dennis Rodman is widely considered the best rebounder in league history.

He won seven rebounding titles, averaged 13. 1 rebounds for his career and was twice the Defensive Player of the Year, For Rodman, it was more than just working tirelessly on both ends. There was also a science to his work in the paint.

Former teammate Isiah Thomas once said Rodman had a science to rebounding.

"I never saw anybody scientifically break down rebounding the way Dennis Rodman did," Thomas said during an episode of the All The Smoke podcast. "The first couple of games, we'd be in the layup line and then he'd stop, stand under the rim. It used to be, you'd lay it up and then you start taking short pull-up shots."

That's when Rodman would start counting shots underneath the rim. It puzzled Thomas so he had to ask the reasoning. What Rodman explained made sense.

"So Dennis was a little strange anyway," Thomas said. "I'm like, `I ain't even going to respond to that. Now, we break up and he's still standing under the basket, looking at everybody's ball. I said, `What you doing?' He said, `I'm counting the spins on the ball. He said, `When you shoot, your ball spins like three times. Joe's [Dumars] sometimes spins four.' This dude was counting the rotations on the ball on every player. He knew how long it was going to be in the air. How many times it rotated or where it was going to hit or where it would bounce. Dennis Rodman was a flat out genius."'

The smarts led Rodman to a Hall of Famer career that included five championships.

Shandel Richardson is the publisher of Back In The Day NBA. He can be reached at shandelrich@gmail.com

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