[shakesbeard]

"We were standing in the lay-up line, warming up and shooting, and Rodman was standing back and watching everybody shoot. I said, ‘Hey, come on, you have to participate; everybody’s shooting lay-ups, you have to shoot lay-ups, too.’ And he said, ‘I’m just watching the rotations on the basketball.’ I said, ‘Excuse me?’ He said, ‘Like, when you shoot, your ball spins three times in the air. Joe’s sometimes has 3 1/2 or four times.’

That’s how far Rodman had taken rebounding, to a totally different level, like off the charts. He knew the rotation of every person that shot on our team — if it spins sideways, where it would bounce, how often it would bounce left or right. He had rebounding down to a science, and I never heard anyone think or talk about rebounding and defense the way he could break it down."

Isiah Thomas on Dennis Rodman's rebounding. http://www.businessinsider.com/dennis-rodman-basketball-geni...

[GFK_of_xmaspast]

The common narration is that players like Rodman have "instinct" instead of "smarts". I'll leave it unsaid as to why this is.

[agumonkey]

When you pay attention to data that much, it's a science just like any other kind right ?