How to Mess with Your Wilt Loving Uncle: Tell Him Rodman Was a Better Rebounder
So you have an annoying uncle/grandpa/dad who loves talking about how Wilt Chamberlain is the greatest. Not LeBron, Jordan, or even Russell. It’s Wilt—end of discussion. You wanna mess with him? Great! Here's an idea: Tell him Dennis Rodman was a better rebounder.
What your uncle will say: “Rodman a better rebounder than Wilt? What a joke. Did you know Wilt had seasons where he would average 27 rebounds a game? What drugs are you on? Good ones apparently! Rodman’s best season, he averaged 18 rebounds a game. You’re confusing hype with greatness! Wilt didn’t have to dye his hair green and boink Madonna to get noticed! He just got his hair cut at a barber shop and boinked ten million stewardesses—like a regular fella! Hell, Wilt never had to put on a dress to get attention. I got the list of the top rebounding seasons of all-time right here on my flip phone. You know where Rodman’s best season is? Thirty fifth best! And he’s the best rebounder? Then what the hell was wrong with him?! Did he keep tripping over his dress?! Gimme a damn break.”
What you’ll say back: “Wow. Loved that stewardess stat. Didn’t know it was only ten million. But here’s the thing about your precious golden era. When Wilt played, guys and shot and missed. A lot. A whole, whole lot. You love to say guys can’t shoot now. What about then? Back when Wilt averaged 50 a game, the league shot 43%. Nowadays’s they shoot 46% and a third of the shots are three pointers![1] Plus, in that crib bricking era your guy Wilt played in, they also played this crazy fast pace. They were like chickens on meth with their heads off! So there were sooooo many more bricks for Wilt to grab. We’re talking 140 misses game! Versus about 80 misses a game when Rodman was leading the league and playing good organized team ball! And I know how much you like good organized team ball! Plus nowadays they got this thing called rebounding percentage. That’s a stat for the percentage of missed shots that a guy rebounds while he’s in the game. Wilt and Russell’s best seasons they’d grab about 20% of the missed shots.[2] But that green haired freak Rodman? He got over 25%! Six different seasons! So what if he was wearing a dress? He was still better than Wilt.”
That’s right Uncle Mike. This dress wearing dude was a better rebounder than Wilt.
[1] In the 2019-2020 NBA season, the league actually took 38% of its shots from three.
[2] This is a link to a great piece by a guy named Benjamin Morris who now writes for fivethirtyeight.com, which is where the Wilt and Russell rebounding percentage estimates come from. Fivethirtyeight may not be great at predicting elections, but they’re pretty solid when it comes to nerdy sports math. I just wouldn’t break out the charts and graphs for Uncle Mike unless you really have to.
Yeah. This guy.