The headbutting of an NBA referee, which cost more than $200,000, including the fine and the lost wages due to a suspension.
Madonna.
The kicking of a photographer after tripping over the dude along the way to essentially a $1.5 million settlement.
Oh, and that white wedding dress, complete with a veil, long gloves and a bouquet for the lovely (ahem) bride.
Sorry to tell you this, but when you watch Episode 3 of “The Last Dance,” ESPN’s 10-part documentary on the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls, you should ask yourself the following question from beginning to end.
Is that really Dennis Rodman, or is that the OTHER guy who was Barnum & Bailey, combined with the best or the worst of Broadway and several episodes of The Simpsons?
The truth is, before, during and after Rodman’s three years with the Bulls through that 1997-98 season, he often was a fraud.
I discovered as much in a hurry.
There I was, standing among a slew of reporters around Rodman’s locker after a playoff game on the road for his Bulls during the late 1990s, and I got a tap on my shoulder.
It was from the late Bryan Burwell, a sports journalist and good friend who once covered the Detroit Pistons during Rodman’s days with The Bad Boys of Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars and Bill Laimbeer.
“Wait until this over,” Burwell said, whispering in my ear.
I nodded as The Dennis Rodman Show kept going and going, with the star entertaining his audience courtesy of his colored hair (can’t remember if it was orange, blue or purple), body piercings and tattoos covering nearly every millimeter of his 6-foot-7 frame.
I don’t remember what Rodman said, but I do remember his answers went from outrageous and ridiculous.
Then it was over.
With reporters scattering after an invisible curtain dropped over Rodman’s locker, Burwell told me to keep waiting.
Rodman tied the last string on his dress shoes, and then he waved us through the invisible curtain. Despite the piercings, the tatoos and the crazy hair, he looked different than he did earlier, and he sounded like somebody else.
He sounded like a normal person. There was a huge difference, though. Rodman sounded like a normal person with an uncanny feel for basketball.
Not even Phil Jackson, the Bulls’ Zen Master coach, could have provided better insight at that moment than the guy who eventually spent his 14 years in the NBA becoming the game’s most efficient rebounder ever.
Rodman led the league in rebounding seven times, which was the same amount of years he made the NBA’s all-defensive first team.
Which brings us to 1986, when Rodman mostly became a bench player after he joined the NBA with the loaded Pistons. They jelled into a two-time world champion by the close of the decade, with much help from Rodman’s rebounding, defense and ferociousness.
Even then, Rodman had issues. He said in his 1997 book called “Bad as I wanna be” that he was so depressed in the spring of 1993 that he attempted suicide. He demanded a trade from the Pistons, and in October, he was off to San Antonio, where he first shaved his head with the Spurs along the way to changing his hair color, dating Madonna and evolving into a master of the bizarre.
Yeah, but just so you know while watching Episode 3, that Dennis Rodman isn’t always Dennis Rodman.
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