10 best duos in Detroit Pistons’ franchise history

10 best duos in Detroit Pistons’ history

#6: Dennis Rodman & John Salley

The Bad Boys are one of the best teams in NBA history, and while they had more skilled offensive players and bigger-bodied willing black-hat bullies, Dennis Rodman and John Salley’s frenetic energy played an important part in those two championships they won.

Rodman is renowned, a household name during the height of his career during which he won three championships with the Chicago Bulls, and one of the best rebounders and defenders ever to play the game. The same can’t be said for Salley, but when the two suited up together for Detroit in the late-80s, they were responsible for many of the same assignments and Salley was every bit the Bad Boy Rodman was.

One reason they are linked is that they both joined the Pistons as rookies for the 1986-87 season. Salley was more highly regarded. In the modern era, he’d be viewed as a lottery pick, as he went 11th in the draft coming off of a strong college career at a decent-sized university in Georgia Tech. Rodman played some dominant basketball at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, a school so small that he tumbled to the bottom of the first round where the Pistons snagged him at #27. It wasn’t long after their arrivals that the Pistons won the Eastern Conference Championship.