1st vote: Larry NanceJust going to briefly parrot what's been said in prior threads for Nance. He's simply a very nice two-way player (excellent finisher, nice instincts cutting to the hoop off-ball, very nice mid-range shot [at least by later in his career], good passing big, OK rebounder, excellent help defender). And he was so consistent through his career that the "mere" 13 seasons sort of belies his very good longevity: you can justly declare that 11 of those 13 seasons were prime seasons. He's on average a 20.2 PER, .175 WS/48, +4.5 BPM in ~36 mpg kind of player in those 11 seasons.
And as far as intangibles, his coaches and teammates really have nothing but effusive praise for the man.
The rest has been fairly well covered by pandrade83 and Owly (among others).
2nd vote: James WorthyOK, I'm switching my alternate vote. The posts (which ironically come AFTER this post) by penbeast0 and Owly have irritated the primary concern I noted about Rodman (which I'll keep in the quotes below, so as not to delete content), enough so that I'm no longer comfortable with him as my secondary pick here. So I'm moving him down at least one or two spots on my ATL, and gonna tentatively go with Worthy as my alt (though Kawhi, Webber, Melo, Brand, and Rasheed were all considered and feel like reasonable/sound choices at this stage too).
Some may argue Worthy hit the lottery in landing on the Lakers at that time; and some also suggest his scoring capability is inflated by playing with Magic. But consider a couple things:
*I recall an analysis that indicated his scoring and efficiency in games Magic missed during his prime basically didn't skip a beat. There were always scorers on those Laker teams: Kareem could score and wanted his touches, Magic could score, and there was usually at least one other pretty good scorer (Byron Scott or maybe Norm Nixon); so Worthy always had to share the ball, which perhaps limited his volume compared to what he may have received elsewhere. Looking at Worthy's offensive game (one of the great transition running/finishing forwards, could also demolish his man in single-coverage from the elbow, decent post game, and not a bad mid-range shooter), it's not hard to imagine prime Worthy dropping 22-24 ppg on respectable (~55% or so) TS in a "lesser" scenario. Worthy was a legit scorer.
**Worthy [to my knowledge] never griped about having to share the spotlight, share the touches, and generally be perceived as a the 2nd or even 3rd banana on the team. In interviews I've heard, he seems an intelligent and well-spoken man, and I've never read a word of dissent attributed to teammates or coaches. This is counter to some of the issues we've been discussing wrt other players. Worthy seems a true team player.
Few other nuts and bolts (both good and bad):
*My primary criticisms of him are that he was a mediocre (to slightly weak) rebounding SF/combo forward, and his longevity is only so-so. Not bad on the latter: 12 seasons, 11 of which he was at least a useful role player, and very durable, too (>30,000 rs minutes logged in those 12 years), and a 7-8 year prime......just not exceptional either.
**Solid/decent defender, probably versatile enough to guard either the 4 or 3 position.
***Excellent turnover economy.
Prior tentative secondary vote:
2nd vote: Dennis Rodman
Have tentatively decided on Dennis for my secondary vote. Always an energy guy, which I admit I have a soft spot for. He came into the league as a "useful" bench player, was arguably in his prime (very near to it, anyway) by his 2nd season. Played nearly 14 seasons, and basically 11 of them are at least very near prime-level: from '88 to '98 he was on average a 14.8 PER, .154 WS/48, and +3.3 BPM player in 33.3 mpg........which we know isn't fully capturing his full defensive value some years.
He was an energetic, versatile defender and EXCELLENT rebounding combo forward right off the bat in his career, eventually becoming a DPOY (twice), before then allowing his defense to regress somewhat (still a solid post defender in Chicago) as he carved out a new niche as basically the GOAT rebounder. During the latter half of his career, I actually suspect he was more valuable on the offensive end than the defensive, as result of the fairly ridiculous ~6 OREB/game he was averaging. RAPM for '97 and '98 reflects this.
I've criticized Rodman previously for his volatile temperament and his propensity for team-cancer meltdowns (see '95 WCF), and I think it's true you need some strong (and vocal) team leaders to keep him in line. It's for this reason that I haven't supported him earlier (and in truth, I could be convinced that this is important enough a consideration that I should delay my support for him a few spots further, in favor of someone like Kawhi or Big Game James).
However, a few "intangible" things I'll credit him with to counter the negative repercussions of his erratic behavior......the positive repercussions of his erratic behavior:
1) No one could get under the skin of opposing players like Dennis Rodman. They don't call him "The Worm" for nothing. Rodman had a knack for getting in opponents' heads, sometimes taking people out of their game (see Brickowski in the '96 Finals). That's a semi-tangible value his team can continue to reap the rewards for even after Rodman takes a seat on the bench.
2) No one played the crowd like Dennis Rodman. Home-team fans LOVED him; opposing fans hated him. But he could really get the crowd going, and sometimes that fuels a team. Get the home-crowd going, the home-team can sometimes ride that momentum. And on the road, well.....Rodman didn't have a problem playing the villain (which perhaps deflects the wrath away from his teammates or the actual course of the game, and instead fixates them directly on him???).
3) The hustle plays. We you see a guy lay it all out diving in futility for a loose ball or some such, I kinda feel like [as a teammate] it makes it that much harder for you to slack off at all.......because you're just going to look bad by comparison if you do.
Anyway, Rodman's got all the other resume-filler that has been stated by another poster below, so I won't get into that. Not 100% set on him here, but tentatively will side with him.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
