In contrast to Scottie Pippen, Michael Jordan never uttered any unsavory remarks against the eccentric Dennis Rodman, a three-year teammate with the Chicago Bulls from 1995-98, in Episode 3 of the five-part, 10-episode The Last Dance documentary series aired on Netflix this afternoon.
Rodman was a free spirit off the court and Jordan let “The Worm” be “Bad As I Wanna Be,” which was the title of his 1996 autobiography that chronicled his first year with the Bulls (1995-96) and resulted in his third NBA championship, the first two of which came in 1989 and 1990 with the “Bad Boys” Detroit Pistons unit that Jordan and the Bulls could not get over the hump in the Eastern Conference playoffs for three straight years until 1991.
That year, Jordan finally got his first ring and to this day, despised the physicality of that the “Bad Boys” brought to the table.
The eccentric Rodman came to his book opening wearing a wedding gown and rainbow-colored hairdo. He eventually got the attention of the public and more.
Jordan grudgingly tolerated his irritating antics, perhaps bordering on lunacy. All them – from his fancy ear and nose piercings and body tattoos, weird hairdos, volcanic temper, wild-partying ways that included a 48-hour getaway to Las Vegas in midseason due to basketball boredom, and publicity-grabbing love life with American actress and model Carmen Electra that triggered domestic violence following a marriage and his subsequent dalliance with Madonna, and his volcanic temper.
It’s all because Rodman, whose father Philandeer once lived in Pampanga for 48 years since June 1965, worked his butts off in the gym and owned unbridled energy on the hardwood. He was a pesky defender and ferocious rebounder that Jordan came to admire in the 6-7 power forward.
At the start of 1997-98 season, the Bulls got off to a poor start at 8-7 with Scottie Pippen in hiatus following an offseason foot surgery, his sub in the starting small forward slot, Croatian Toni Kukoc, was slow in coming back to shape due to an injury and a disinterested Rodman playing like a zombie.
Jordan knew he needed Rodman to step up and take some load off his shoulders with Pippen out and after the Bulls went down to their seventh defeat in 15 appearances wherein Rodman was thrown out due to technical fouls that he seemed to enjoy being called for, Rodman approached Jordan for “f __king” the game.
Thereafter, the Bulls, who were 24-11 when Pippen finally returned to action, went on a winning spree and wound up with a 62-20 record, tying the Utah Jazz, their NBA Finals adversaries, for the best regular-season mark in the league.
Rodman secured his seventh consecutive NBA rebounding crown with a runaway 15.0 average.
Yes, I do agree with Rodman when in the opening clips of Episode 3 of “The Last Dance” documentary, he said that without him, the Bulls probably would not have a produced a second title“three-peat”in 1997-98.
Jordan needed a hardworking Rodman to be an effective Third Wheel and he lived up to the billing by giving his all.
Rodman, who turns 59 on May 13, was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011.
And if you still believe in his sanity, Rodman visited North Korea on four occasions – thrice in 2013 and once in 2017 – to meet the country’s leader Kim Jong-un, whom he described as a “friend for life.”