Update (April 6): Rodman’s former teammate Steve Kerr got a laugh out of his rest comments and told reporters that he couldn’t complain since he usually “was suspended for 15 games a year anyway:”
“I saw Dennis Rodman was complaining about rest and I got a good kick out of that because I thought, Well Dennis was suspended for 15 games a year anyway, he got plenty of rest! He would go to Vegas or WrestleMania, he just took a night off whenever he wanted, he can’t complain.”
Original Story (April 5): Dennis Rodman is the latest NBA legend to rip current players for taking games off.
The Worm says that Michael Jordan, unlike LeBron James, never sat out when healthy.
WATCH: Dennis Rodman goes on profanity-laced rant about LeBron James, Michael Jordan and rest https://t.co/P9vZsRn3yk pic.twitter.com/W6Gucj3yLZ
— CBS Sports NBA (@CBSSportsNBA) April 5, 2017
The Hall of Famer, naturally, goes on to talk about how much tougher the League was back in his day.
Per CBS:
“You know what, LeBron’s doing one thing that I always said that Michael Jordan never did,” Rodman said. “He never rested. He played every game. He played every game. LeBron has the position to do this now because they need him. The league needs him that’s why he’s doing all this crazy s— now like bitching and complaining and all this [BS].”
Quick interruption: Let’s not forget that Jordan took a sabbatical of sorts after nine seasons. He didn’t play in 1993-94, instead becoming a minor-league baseball player, and returned to basketball with 17 games left in the 1994-95 regular-season. He also retired for three seasons from 1998 to 2011 before joining the Washington Wizards. James has already played in 20 more playoff games than Jordan and will pass him in regular-season games early next season. At 32 years old, James has played more career minutes than Jordan. If rest is something that must be earned, then no one has earned it more than LeBron.
OK, back to Rodman: “It’s very easy to do what they define greatness [as now] — Michael Jordan did it when it was tough, really tough. And what’d he do? Lead the league in scoring 10 years in a row. Ten years in a row, he led the league in scoring. Ten years in a row, back then, that was hard. Averaged like 32 points a game. That was hard back then. Now it’s easy. All these [expletive] triple-doubles … back then when he was getting his ass whooped, I mean beat down every game, and then when he played against us [the Detroit Pistons], he said — guess what — ‘I gotta go back in the gym.’ And he got tough. He got tough and he got great. And greater. So, that’s it.”
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