Glen Rice is an interesting player. He is one of those guys who I think would be better today than his own era.
There was a couple of points in his career I found interesting.
The Lakers years were interesting because of how he struggled offensively within the Triangle without screens to run off of for catch and shoot opportunities. He would get angry at how his role had changed from Charlotte where the offense was designed for him versus the Triangle which seemed to work against his interests. With a decline in his offensive role, Rice was unable to make up for it with his defense & rebounding and was sent away in favour of Rick Fox.
The playoff matchups with Scottie Pippen were epic. Some of the best lockdown defense you will see. Pip honed in on Rice and took away so many of his catch and shoot opportunities. Forced Rice to attack one-on-one off the bounce which he wasn't as good at as he also showed in LAL in the Triangle. Rice's best one-on-one play was his post ups but Pippen was big enough, strong enough and far too long for Rice to get that fallaway off comfortably over Pippen. So all series long you would see Rice taking contested jump-shots with Pippen all over him.
I thought they had 3 playoff matchups but it was only two. In 1992, the Bulls swept a young Miami team in the first round. Rice scored 19ppg but on only 42.5% TS%. In 1998, they played in the ECSF, Rice scored 22.6ppg but again held to 51.6% TS%.
The reason I find this somewhat comforting is that nobody in today's NBA would be allowed to body up Rice the way Pippen was allowed to do in the 1990s. So I don't think defenders would be as good at shutting Rice down. Secondly, very few of the starting SFs in this Historical League are top defensive guys (Marion, Iggy) so Rice will get off against most others.
Also, with the way the three point shot is encouraged offensively (increased volume from 3) and consequently how teams now have to defend the three point line, Rice's driving opportunities would increase as well as his three point shot attempts. Making him even more difficult to defend.
Rice played in another couple of playoff series in his prime. He played very well against NY in 1997. They didn't have the right defensive matchups for him. Rice was too good off ball for Larry Johnson (starting SF for NY) to stick with him. And Houston & Starks were too small to check Rice. That was perhaps his best playoff series with 28ppg on 49% FG% 62% TS%. Larry Johnson did get some revenge on the other end with his post ups as he too had one of his best offensive series against Rice. In fairness, very tough defensive matchup for Rice. LJ too big and powerful for him.
Rice also played very well against Mutombo's Hawks (Ty Corbin main defender vs Rice) in 1998 with 23ppg on 58% TS%. I thought Anthony Mason was the real Hawks killer in that series as they had no answer for him but Rice was very good as well.
An interesting matchup in 1994 was against the Atlanta Hawks were he played Danny Manning (on my team). I have only seen 2 games of this series. Atlanta had no SFs and a few bigs so Manning replaced Nique at SF and matched up with Rice. Manning did well in the games I saw. Over 5 games, Rice averaged only 13ppg on 45% TS%. Manning averaged 18ppg on 51% TS%. I am surprised Rice did not do better here.