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Dennis Rodman's eleven game absence from the Bulls allows a good look at his overall effect on the team. Since Rodman is such a unique talent, I have historically had a very difficult time quantifying his effect. Given the number of teams he has played for and the players he has been traded for, it's clear that I'm not the only person with this difficulty.
Rodman's absence actually only allows us to take a look at his value relative to his replacements, Toni Kukoc and Jason Caffey. The abilities of these players are much easier to quantify than those of Rodman, so just by comparison, we can get some idea of the value of the Worm.
So what happened while Rodman was out? The Bulls continued to dominate, going 9-2 and losing both games on the road to very tough teams. Among their quality victories were wins over New York, Cleveland, Seattle, and Portland. They also thoroughly dominated their opponents whose records were below 0.500, winning by an average of 19.
The Bulls rebounding dropped off while he was gone, something I have found every time Rodman has missed games. But because Rodman has been often unwilling to shoot, he has been a negative influence on the team offense, just not this time. The Bulls' shooting barely changed, going up less than 1% during Rodman's absence.
On the defensive end, the Bulls allowed a bit better shooting, too. They forced more turnovers, though, which somewhat balances this.
We can take all this information and try to digest it until we have an opinion... or we can get scientific. While you digest, I guess we have to go to commercial...
When I go into my bag of tricks, pretty much what I find is that the Bulls didn't play as well as they should have. In other words, over the course of the time that Rodman missed, the team didn't play as well as they had while Rodman was there. They could have beaten the bad teams by more and they really should have won the games they lost. They simply could have been better...
Not by much, though. I would feel very comfortable saying that Kukoc and Rodman are equivalent players based on the past 11 games, but there was a slight difference. That difference was, surprisingly, in the offense. The defense stayed about constant, but the offense declined slightly, primarily because no one could make up for Rodman's domination on the offensive boards. Given the reputations of these two players -- Kukoc as an offensive player with poor defense and Rodman as a defensive player with no offense -- this is a little strange.
I hate strange or enigmatic results, but strange and enigmatic seem to be a constant part of the Dennis Rodman story. This most recent Rodman incident fuzzily indicates that he is about as valuable as Toni Kukoc. Kukoc is a good player, a borderline All-Star and that is where Rodman is, too. Sometimes, my numbers don't give Rodman this much credit, often estimating him to be a 0.500 player -- or someone who contributes as many losses as wins.
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Just as Kukoc's numbers fluctuate a lot with the performance of his teammates, Rodman is a better player when he has good players around him. He is a complimentary player -- poor choice of words, I know. With the Bulls, Rodman is at least an 0.800 ballplayer (Kukoc is about a 0.900 ballplayer) and that is good enough to help make the Bulls almost a 0.900 ballclub and the best in history. Regardless of Rodman's individual place in history, just being part of the best team is a tribute to his ability to, uh... fit in.
I didn't talk much about the method used to evaluate Rodman vs. Kukoc. It is quite technical, but it is available for you to examine if you really want to learn some math.