Hoo boy, I’m coming in with a hot take today. That’s why I have waited over a week to post it, but I have to post it because this shit has gotten out of control. We need to slow down on the Kobe love.
Now first off, I get it. Kobe, and eight other people dying in a helicopter crash is no doubt a tragedy, especially since there were children involved. I loved watching Kobe Bryant play basketball, and I think he’ll forever be the closest player to Michael Jordan in skill and competitiveness. Also, Kobe was a guy who did a lot to try to promote the advancement of women’s basketball which I think is great.
But Kobe Bryant was a rapist, and you can’t erase that because it doesn’t fit your happy little narrative. It’s especially offensive when you hear about people talking about the Mamba Mentality, and not making the connection of a man who pushed for more, more, and more. It’s horrifying to think about, and I would hope it’s impossible to ignore, but so many people seem to be doing just that.
I don’t know how the NBA and various teams can look at honoring him, because this shit is not going to age well. Random teams retiring his number, an All-Star game being dedicated to him, he was a great player, but you can’t overlook the other thing forever. It’s not a matter of if but when a giant uprising forms for teams and the league to rescind all of these Kobe dedications, so what is the gain in doing this?
Again, I liked Kobe as a player, and what happened was no doubt a tragedy. But let’s get some perspective here, Kobe did something awful and if you’re going to recognize the good, you have to recognize the very bad that goes with it. You can respect his game, but you don’t have to honor him.
Horace Grant
Horace Grant was selected 10th overall by the Chicago Bulls in the 1987 NBA Draft. As good as a player as Horace Grant was, he was still only the second most valuable acquisition for the Bulls during that draft as it was also the year that they selected Scottie Pippen. This is fitting for Horace Grant as he was a very good player who was constantly overlooked due to the surrounding cast he had during his time in the NBA.
After Grant's rookie year, the Bulls traded Charles Oakley to acquire Bill Cartwright. This gave the Bulls a starting center and opened up the starting power forward position for Grant. Once that happened, he was a model of consistency. You could always count on about 13 points, 9 rebounds, 2.5 assists, a steal, a block and some sweet rec-specs every game. He was the perfect third wheel for those early Bulls teams as he provided efficient scoring as a third option while doing the dirty work of defense and rebounding in the front court.
And this is where I get sad as a writer. There is nothing more to write about Horace Grant's time with the Bulls. He was a super good basketball player, but nothing about him stands out. He was above average in everything for a power forward, but there's not a lot of ways to wax poetically about above averageness. Did he have some exciting games? Yeah, but it's not like he ever took over a series, and even in his highlight video, he's not even doing the most impressive move in half of the plays.
Never second, never fourth, he was always the third best player on those Bulls teams.
And this is driving me crazy, because Horace Grant deserves better. The man is third on this list, and maybe that says it all. He was the third best player on the championship Bulls teams, the third best player on some really strong Orlando Magic teams, and even the third best player on the first Lakers championship team with Kobe and Shaq. He had the talent of the second best player on a contending team, and he ended up as a number three that helped build a dynasty.
With his talent, Horace Grant deserved more, but hopefully this was enough. It may not be the most exciting career, but it's still damn impressive.
Dennis Rodman
Before he was America's greatest ambassador to North Korea, Dennis Rodman was actually a basketball player. He was also an actor and a professional wrestler, so the guy definitely stayed busy, but he still managed to find plenty of time to get in trouble. Between famous relationships with Carmen Electra, Madonna, and, uh, himself...
...not to mention run-ins with the law, alcohol abuse, and multiple books, it was quite the ride. His time management skills must have been impeccable. But for now, let's stick with the basketball side of things before touching on the extracurricular activities.
Rodman was drafted in the second round (27th overall) by the Detroit Pistons where he fit in well with the Bad Boy Pistons. Rodman was always a guy who was willing to do the dirty work, and where many players want more scoring opportunities as their career progresses, Rodman went the opposite direction as he averaged 11 points per game in his second year but would never average double-digit points again in his career. But Rodman was never known as he excelled on defense and rebounding, winning back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year for the 1989-90 and 1990-91 seasons.
He would spend his first seven years with the Pistons, winning two titles, before being traded to the San Antonio Spurs in a deal that got the Pistons Sean Elliott. After two years with the Spurs, he was traded to the Bulls for Will Perdue right before the beginning of the 1995-96 season.
Rodman continued to contribute by doing the dirty work for those Bulls teams. In his first year with the team, he was selected to the NBA All-Defensive First team, along with Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan, while leading the league in rebounding. Of course, this was not without incident, as he was suspended for six games for headbutting a referee.
In the playoffs, he played even better as the competition got tougher. That year, the Eastern Conference Finals may have been more important to the Bulls than even the NBA Finals. The Orlando Magic were the first team to eliminate a Jordan-led Bulls team since 1990. But in 1996, the Bulls went out and annihilated them, helped greatly by Dennis Rodman who both suffocated the Magic on defense and annoyed them with repeated offensive rebounds on offense. Hell, he even managed 11.5 points per game in the sweep of the Magic. He continued his great play in the Finals, highlighted by a 9 point, 19 rebound, 5 assist, 3 steals, and a block in the Championship clinching Game Six against the Seattle SuperSonics.
Rodman would turn 35 during the 1996-97 season, and his age began to show. He still led the league with over 16 rebounds per game, but he only managed to play in 55 games that season, partially due to missing 11 games after kicking a cameraman in the groin. In the playoffs he averaged just 28 minutes per game, down from 34 the year before and only managed 8.4 rebounds per game.
He would bounce back for the 1997-98 season as he managed to play in 80 games that year. Still, it was clear that he was not the same player he once was. In the playoffs, he played great early on, but as the games got more important in the Eastern Conference and NBA Finals, Rodman's impact diminished, although the Bulls were still able to beat the Jazz in six games for their third straight title.
The Bulls would release him after the lockout where Rodman would play a partial season with the Los Angeles Lakers and another one with the Dallas Mavericks, but his antics far outweighed his contributions at that point in his career.
But this was okay as Rodman had plenty of hobbies outside of basketball. He was a professional wrestler, tagging up with Hulk Hogan and earning the nickname, "Rod The Bod," a nickname that is criminally left off of his basketball-reference page.
He would have singles runs against both Macho Man Randy Savage and Curt Hennig, but his greatest accomplishment may have been winning Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Wrestling tournament, besting the likes of Frank Stallone, Butterbean, and Screech.
Outside of the ring, Rodman was Commissioner of the Lingerie Football League in 2005, was on the Celebrity Apprentice in both 2009 and 2013, and may now be our best hope of avoiding a nuclear war with North Korea. All of this, and I still consider his greatest accomplishment marrying Carmen Electra, and then claiming that she forced him into the marriage. Now that is a baller move.
James Edwards
James Edwards made me feel like a bad NBA fan. Edwards may be the Bulls ideal third center. They loved super experienced guys at the end of their careers who could just provide veteran leadership off the court as they knew their on the court contributions probably weren't going to blow anyone away. What should blow you away is James Edwards played 19 seasons in the NBA. He was primarily a starter for his first 14 years in the league, because James Edwards was pretty damn awesome.
After starting his career in 1977, he joined up with the Bulls before his final season in 1995-96. Unfortunately, before I can get into his Bulls tenure, I have to address the elephant in the room. James Edwards was also a part of the Bad Boy Pistons. Due to the Pistons rule on this list, he must rank as low as justifiably possible. But he was probably the least offensive player on those teams, so I can at least be somewhat objective on Edwards' contributions.
For the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, Edwards played in just 28 games and failed to crack 100 points on the season. But he was a third center so not a whole lot was expected of him. The Bulls had a tendency to bring in grizzled veteran big men just to Michael Jordan wouldn't immediately try to bury them and ruin their confidence. With a player that had been around as long as Edwards, there was already some respect built in between him and Jordan, so even though I'm sure Jordan talked shit to him; it wasn't nearly as bad as he was to some other teammates.
His highlight during the regular season was probably a February 2nd game against the team that originally drafted him, the Los Angeles Lakers, where he played 23 minutes, put up 12 points (shooting 67% from the field), 3 rebounds, an assist, and a steal. Starting Center, Luc Longley, was unable to play during this game, and Edwards stepped up to provide some points off the bench.
Edwards also played in six playoff games, but his most notable contribution was a one trillion in an overtime loss in Game 3 against the Knicks. Outside of that, he just played some garbage time in games that were already decided.
But Edwards is a 3-time NBA Champion, although two of those should have asterisks since he was part of the Pistons. He spent most of his time being a key contributor, although he always fell short of All-Star status. Still, the guy played 19 seasons in the NBA, and you really can't find much information about what he is up to today. Considering how many of the players from the era turned out, that can probably be counted as a success.
I just read "The Jordan Rules," Sam Smith's story of the 1990-1991 Chicago Bulls season that primarily focuses on Michael Jordan, but through nearly 400 pages, everybody gets a fair amount of ink. It made me long for those Chicago Bulls glory days, so I am going to go back and rank every player's contribution to the Bulls six NBA Titles during the 1990s.
Chuck Nevitt
Chuck Nevitt is a man who maximized his time in the NBA. He never played in more than 43 games in a single season, his career high in points was just 3.8, and that was in only six games, but this man managed to play from 1982-1994. There were three years in there where he didn't play in the NBA spread out throughout that career, but a twelve year stretch of playing in the highest organization is pretty impressive.
How did he manage this? Um, long story short (no pun intended), he was tall as shit. Seven feet, five inches, but weighing just 217 pounds. Nevitt managed to make Shawn Bradley look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Also, the 1991-92 Chicago Bulls were not the first championship squad that he played on, as he also won a title with the 1985 Los Angeles Lakers, making him the tallest player to ever be on a NBA Championship roster.
He played the preseason in 1991 with the Bulls but was released before the season started. Then, a few weeks later, he was signed again and would last a month with the team. In four games with the Bulls, his greatest contribution may have been the nine minutes he provided. Yes, he did have an assist, a rebound, and two points, but even that was on three field goal attempts. But in those nine minutes, he also managed two fouls and three turnovers. I can't imagine he shared the court with Michael Jordan at all, as I think Jordan notoriously hated big men and may have murdered him on the court for his performance.
Chuck Nevitt may have not been the best player in Bulls history. Actually, I think we can definitively say he wasn't. But he was the tallest, and that counts for something.
I just read "The Jordan Rules," Sam Smith's story of the 1990-1991 Chicago Bulls season that primarily focuses on Michael Jordan, but through nearly 400 pages, everybody gets a fair amount of ink. It made me long for those Chicago Bulls glory days, so I am going to go back and rank every player's contribution to the Bulls six NBA Titles during the 1990s.
Jack Haley
Somebody had to come in at 45, and just like many other roles that most would not have wanted to take, I feel like Jack would embrace his role in kicking off this series. Jack Haley spent ten years in the NBA. Well, okay, not really. He started in 1989 and ended in 1998, but he had some stops at other leagues in between there. His best work was during his first stint with the New Jersey Nets. In the 89-90 season, he started 26 games for the Nets and averaged six points and five rebounds per game. He also had less illustrious stints with the Spurs and Lakers.
Although it may not be greatly remembered, Haley also had two stints with the Bulls as he got there before they started winning championships as he was drafted in 1987 and played for the Bulls in 1988-89. He was claimed on waivers by the Nets in 1989 but came back to the Bulls for the 95-96 season.
His impact on the court was about as small as it could get. He played in a grand total of one game. He played seven minutes but did manage to put up six shots and two free throws. I have not been able to confirm that Jordan made him sit on the bench for the rest of the year because he was jealous of anybody getting up that many shots in that little of time.
But Haley made the most of his experience on the bench as he was an enthusiastic cheerleader for the team and provided a friend to Dennis Rodman which is not an easy job to do.
Unfortunately, Jack Haley passed away in 2015 due to heart disease. He was only 51 years old. He's one of those guys that seemed like a great guy and you never really heard anything bad about him.
I don't want to end on a sad note, so just in case you forgot how awesome Jack Haley was, here's some photos to help jog your memory.
I know what you're thinking. There is no way there is a better picture than that. Oh, but there is.
I know that now you are thinking, that this is the photo that cannot be topped, but it was.
