Larry Nance vs. Horace Grant vs. Dennis Rodman

[AStark1991]

Team success aside, how would you rank these guys as individual players?

[jdzimme3]

With the caveat that I am not expert on Nance, I would go:

Nance
Rodman
Grant

Pretty confident that despite his offensive limitations, rodman was more impactful for longer than grant.

[kcktiny]

Nance
Rodman
Grant

I'll second that listing.

From 1982-83 to 1986-87 with Phoenix at 6-10 Nance played primarily SF (PFs were Maurice Lucas, Ed Pinckney, Charles Pittman), but among all SFs and PFs those 5 seasons was 1st in blocks (772), 8th in rebounds, 14th in points, and the only SFs/PFs that shot better than him were McHale and Barkley.

Was also a great defender that did not get recognition for that until his days in Cleveland. From 1982-83 to 1992-93 had the 4th most blocks among all players in the league (only Eaton, Olajuwon, Bol had more), the 9th most rebounds, 19th most points. Played 35 min/g all that time yet committed just 1.9 TO/g.

[One_and_Done]

Nance

Ho grant


Rodman (would be borderline unplayable today in high level games)

[trex_8063]

I think for PEAK, I might go:

Nance
Rodman
Grant

Though for average prime year, I might nudge Grant ahead of Rodman (or into a 2a/2b) situation.

For career, I'd put Rodman last. Grant's longevity, durability, and consistent value for high-level teams presses him ahead, while Nance was simply a better player [and teammate] than Rodman, with similar longevity.

[Mr Ringer]

Not sure I'll take him first but I do think Horace deserve more credit here.
Wad a great part in some great teams.
Could always fit his role and perform to perfection.
Elite defender with great attacking skills.. Underrated for me.

[SHAQ32]

Rodman v Grant is tough. Rodman is clearly a better defender, but he's not spacing the floor or really giving you much of anything on offense besides rebounding, which is important.

But Grant, although clearly behind defensively, was still a really, really good defender, and was one of the best floor-spacing PF/Cs in the league, especially in the early to mid 90s. He was like the Al Horford of that era.

I think I'd give the nod to HoGrant, no Homer.

[penbeast0]

I've traditionally been one of those championing Larry Nance against the better known PFs of his era but for peak, I'm a bit leery of this. Offensively, he was a great finisher, good roll man, didn't get his own shot but neither did the others. Defensively, his shotblocking is indeed special but his man defense, especially in the post where most defense for big men was played, suffered from his slim build. He had trouble holding his ground against opposing bigs who could back him right under the basket. Rebounding, he's clearly a step behind Grant and 3 or 4 levels behind Rodman who was one of the legit GOAT candidates in that regard.

Super consistent for a long time, stayed healthy, but peak I'm less sure in this company.

[Owly]

I've traditionally been one of those championing Larry Nance against the better known PFs of his era but for peak, I'm a bit leery of this. Offensively, he was a great finisher, good roll man, didn't get his own shot but neither did the others. Defensively, his shotblocking is indeed special but his man defense, especially in the post where most defense for big men was played, suffered from his slim build. He had trouble holding his ground against opposing bigs who could back him right under the basket. Rebounding, he's clearly a step behind Grant and 3 or 4 levels behind Rodman who was one of the legit GOAT candidates in that regard.

Super consistent for a long time, stayed healthy, but peak I'm less sure in this company.

I would argue that

"didn't get his own shot but neither did the others" undersells Nance. For example for regular season career their usage percentages stand at
Nance: 20.6
Grant: 15.2
Rodman: 11.4

Grant does play longer (38621 minutes, to Nance's 30697, Rodman's 28839). If you remove the last 8479 of Grant's career (2000-2004, at 12.2 usage) he's up to 16.1.

When he played 4 (in Phoenix I believe he was playing more a 3, and still accumulating those blocks) it is true he was lighter and could be hurt somewhat in a strength matchup ... I think (a) that's a relative, marginal weakness rather than a glaring absolute one (b) it could be argued of Horace too (for instance I've seen it noted of both in the Barry Scouting Report/Bible series in years where they got a AAA defensive grade [e.g. Nance after '92, Grant after '94]). Arguably Rodman too (later he got a good rep for doing a job against Shaq in '96) but ... that may be off a small sample and that version of Rodman wasn't venturing out like the other two (at the margin ... I don't love to credit dirty stuff and there's some notion that Rodman knew what he could get away with ... and perhaps also played with the idea that you couldn't call everything he did ... ultimately though especially if you're not willing to call out refs as objectively wrong and say this is something roughly akin to cheating it's probably not something I'm really going to factor it ... maybe just something to think about, as he was at a size disadvantage too).

Then he doesn't have a year like Rodman does of arguably nukeing his value (maybe even negative) with open revolt against the organization.

Rodman was a great rebounder but for context in terms of the three
1) Nance played the 3 a fair chunk in Phoenix (as admittedly did Rodman earlier in Detroit)
2) Nance's career rebound percentage of 13.6 isn't so far from Grant's 14.1 (or per earlier points 14.6 through 1999 and 30142 RS minutes)
3) Nance in Cleveland (anecdotally from circa 90-91 season) took his offense away from the basket for a 4 which probably hurt his individual offensive rebounding but helped his team (general benefits of spacing and pulling out the rival 4 so maybe hurting the team level defensive shell on the boards)
4) In general individual rebounding production and impact on team rebounding aren't perfectly aligned
5) When Rodman became consumed with rebounding there was reporting that at least to some degree, he lived off or was no longer as good as his reputation on defense.


For balance ... on the mean side towards Nance ... "stayed healthy" could be regarded as a touch generous. Between '85 and '90 (dates chosen to be a mean cutoff, but still taken from a good chunk of his prime), he averages 67.5 games, 62.66666667 starts and 2371.5 total minutes per season. Grant does have an advantage in this regard.

[homecourtloss]

Rodman v Grant is tough. Rodman is clearly a better defender, but he's not spacing the floor or really giving you much of anything on offense besides rebounding, which is important.

But Grant, although clearly behind defensively, was still a really, really good defender, and was one of the best floor-spacing PF/Cs in the league, especially in the early to mid 90s. He was like the Al Horford of that era.

I think I'd give the nod to HoGrant, no Homer.

Not so sure about the bolded. Older, later career Grant was a 95th+ percentile defender due to a variety of factors, with one of them being him approaching defensive QB awareness in getting people into the right places as you saw when he came to Orlando.

[penbeast0]

I've traditionally been one of those championing Larry Nance against the better known PFs of his era but for peak, I'm a bit leery of this. Offensively, he was a great finisher, good roll man, didn't get his own shot but neither did the others. Defensively, his shotblocking is indeed special but his man defense, especially in the post where most defense for big men was played, suffered from his slim build. He had trouble holding his ground against opposing bigs who could back him right under the basket. Rebounding, he's clearly a step behind Grant and 3 or 4 levels behind Rodman who was one of the legit GOAT candidates in that regard.

Super consistent for a long time, stayed healthy, but peak I'm less sure in this company.

I would argue that

"didn't get his own shot but neither did the others" undersells Nance. For example for regular season career their usage percentages stand at
Nance: 20.6
Grant: 15.2
Rodman: 11.4

Grant does play longer (38621 minutes, to Nance's 30697, Rodman's 28839). If you remove the last 8479 of Grant's career (2000-2004, at 12.2 usage) he's up to 16.1.

When he played 4 (in Phoenix I believe he was playing more a 3, and still accumulating those blocks) it is true he was lighter and could be hurt somewhat in a strength matchup ... I think (a) that's a relative, marginal weakness rather than a glaring absolute one (b) it could be argued of Horace too (for instance I've seen it noted of both in the Barry Scouting Report/Bible series in years where they got a AAA defensive grade [e.g. Nance after '92, Grant after '94]). Arguably Rodman too (later he got a good rep for doing a job against Shaq in '96) but ... that may be off a small sample and that version of Rodman wasn't venturing out like the other two (at the margin ... I don't love to credit dirty stuff and there's some notion that Rodman knew what he could get away with ... and perhaps also played with the idea that you couldn't call everything he did ... ultimately though especially if you're not willing to call out refs as objectively wrong and say this is something roughly akin to cheating it's probably not something I'm really going to factor it ... maybe just something to think about, as he was at a size disadvantage too).

Then he doesn't have a year like Rodman does of arguably nukeing his value (maybe even negative) with open revolt against the organization.

Rodman was a great rebounder but for context in terms of the three
1) Nance played the 3 a fair chunk in Phoenix (as admittedly did Rodman earlier in Detroit)
2) Nance's career rebound percentage of 13.6 isn't so far from Grant's 14.1 (or per earlier points 14.6 through 1999 and 30142 RS minutes)
3) Nance in Cleveland (anecdotally from circa 90-91 season) took his offense away from the basket for a 4 which probably hurt his individual offensive rebounding but helped his team (general benefits of spacing and pulling out the rival 4 so maybe hurting the team level defensive shell on the boards)
4) In general individual rebounding production and impact on team rebounding aren't perfectly aligned
5) When Rodman became consumed with rebounding there was reporting that at least to some degree, he lived off or was no longer as good as his reputation on defense.


For balance ... on the mean side towards Nance ... "stayed healthy" could be regarded as a touch generous. Between '85 and '90 (dates chosen to be a mean cutoff, but still taken from a good chunk of his prime), he averages 67.5 games, 62.66666667 starts and 2371.5 total minutes per season. Grant does have an advantage in this regard.

All good points but remember we are only talking about peak according to OP. So for Nance, his peak rebound rate is 14.6 (15.0 season was only 40 games), for Grant it is 17.5. The peak usage for Nance is 22.6 (22.9 in the 40 game season), for Grant it is 18.7 so peak usage rate are closer and peak rebound rates more separated. And Rodman's peak season would presumably be one where he wasn't cheating off on defense.

[Owly]

I've traditionally been one of those championing Larry Nance against the better known PFs of his era but for peak, I'm a bit leery of this. Offensively, he was a great finisher, good roll man, didn't get his own shot but neither did the others. Defensively, his shotblocking is indeed special but his man defense, especially in the post where most defense for big men was played, suffered from his slim build. He had trouble holding his ground against opposing bigs who could back him right under the basket. Rebounding, he's clearly a step behind Grant and 3 or 4 levels behind Rodman who was one of the legit GOAT candidates in that regard.

Super consistent for a long time, stayed healthy, but peak I'm less sure in this company.

I would argue that

"didn't get his own shot but neither did the others" undersells Nance. For example for regular season career their usage percentages stand at
Nance: 20.6
Grant: 15.2
Rodman: 11.4

Grant does play longer (38621 minutes, to Nance's 30697, Rodman's 28839). If you remove the last 8479 of Grant's career (2000-2004, at 12.2 usage) he's up to 16.1.

When he played 4 (in Phoenix I believe he was playing more a 3, and still accumulating those blocks) it is true he was lighter and could be hurt somewhat in a strength matchup ... I think (a) that's a relative, marginal weakness rather than a glaring absolute one (b) it could be argued of Horace too (for instance I've seen it noted of both in the Barry Scouting Report/Bible series in years where they got a AAA defensive grade [e.g. Nance after '92, Grant after '94]). Arguably Rodman too (later he got a good rep for doing a job against Shaq in '96) but ... that may be off a small sample and that version of Rodman wasn't venturing out like the other two (at the margin ... I don't love to credit dirty stuff and there's some notion that Rodman knew what he could get away with ... and perhaps also played with the idea that you couldn't call everything he did ... ultimately though especially if you're not willing to call out refs as objectively wrong and say this is something roughly akin to cheating it's probably not something I'm really going to factor it ... maybe just something to think about, as he was at a size disadvantage too).

Then he doesn't have a year like Rodman does of arguably nukeing his value (maybe even negative) with open revolt against the organization.

Rodman was a great rebounder but for context in terms of the three
1) Nance played the 3 a fair chunk in Phoenix (as admittedly did Rodman earlier in Detroit)
2) Nance's career rebound percentage of 13.6 isn't so far from Grant's 14.1 (or per earlier points 14.6 through 1999 and 30142 RS minutes)
3) Nance in Cleveland (anecdotally from circa 90-91 season) took his offense away from the basket for a 4 which probably hurt his individual offensive rebounding but helped his team (general benefits of spacing and pulling out the rival 4 so maybe hurting the team level defensive shell on the boards)
4) In general individual rebounding production and impact on team rebounding aren't perfectly aligned
5) When Rodman became consumed with rebounding there was reporting that at least to some degree, he lived off or was no longer as good as his reputation on defense.


For balance ... on the mean side towards Nance ... "stayed healthy" could be regarded as a touch generous. Between '85 and '90 (dates chosen to be a mean cutoff, but still taken from a good chunk of his prime), he averages 67.5 games, 62.66666667 starts and 2371.5 total minutes per season. Grant does have an advantage in this regard.

All good points but remember we are only talking about peak according to OP. So for Nance, his peak rebound rate is 14.6 (15.0 season was only 40 games), for Grant it is 17.5. The peak usage for Nance is 22.6 (22.9 in the 40 game season), for Grant it is 18.7 so peak usage rate are closer and peak rebound rates more separated. And Rodman's peak season would presumably be one where he wasn't cheating off on defense.

I'll be honest I'm pretty confused here.

It’s not clear to me that the poster notes it as regarding peaks in the opening post. And they don’t seem to have posted further.

And for what it’s worth several others have been discussing something other than a peak-only timeframe.

Then there’s the matter of what one means by peak. If we were to say that is that is the topic ...I think it’s unfair to pull together "Franken-peaks". Where you're interested in "Which player ..." rather than "Which player-year ..." and composite metrics differ ... okay that can make sense. But compiling different peaks across different areas of stats doesn't make much sense to me. As it happens, depending on perspective, maybe here it's marginal (Grant's cited years align in '94 ... though PER, WS/48 and BPM all concur with '92 as better, driven - I think - by better shooting efficiency ... mileage may vary ... Nance's given years don't align, and neither is '92 which BPM and WS/48 have as his RS peak ... and given higher total minutes I'd eyeball it ahead of '87 ... but the year-to-year values don't fluctuate that much).

Then there's the "40 game season" ... which - and I was wondering if you were talking Nance Jr or a different player -I think is a reference to 1987-88 in Phoenix before the trade.

Finally whilst pace, minutes and efficiency help and usage and scoring isn't a perfect proxy self shot creation ... a peak only timeframe would make the "didn't get his own shot" a little more jarring, uncharitable when he's second on the team in ppg and points in those top two joint-top usage seasons and a fairly large (20.2 to 16.3) and then huge (22.5 to 12.0) ppg gap from third. Usage is the better measure but this does help highlight that after Davis, Nance is probably the next name on the scouting report. And whilst Jay Humphries has a solid, perhaps underappreciated Milwaukee peak ... this version isn't a super-dynamic playmaker.