Dennis Rodman appreciation.....

After 48 minutes of the berserk basketball that only Rodman could conjure, he would go into the Bulls gym and climb the Stairmaster for up to an hour. Lathered in sweat, he would then don his tracksuit pants and a black leather jacket and drive to his favourite watering hole, where he would stay.


"Dennis did two things: he worked out and he partied," Luc says. "Sleeping was a distant third. He was earning millions of dollars but he basically had a two-bedroom squat with lino floors next to the training facility. It was just somewhere to try and get back to for a few hours before practice."


Rodman broke all sport's rules and challenged its stereotypes. He was a party animal, but he worked harder than anybody in the league. He like to wear make-up and women's clothes, but he was the toughest, hardest player in the league. He supported gay rights and was dating hot Hollywood starlet, Carmen Electra.


"I remember being in New York for a big play-off game," Luc says. "We rolled out of the Crown Plaza Hotel, right in the middle of town, and thousands of people were in the square. Kids were climbing up the fountain to get a view of Michael, and Dennis comes out with a pink feather boa and a boob tube. He gets on the bus and says, 'Let's kill 'em.' And we did."


"In some ways it was inspiring. How do you respond to that kind of eccentricity? You just have to be lifted up by it."


A good party was integral to Rodman's game preparation, and one occasion when he went without nearly cost the Bulls their second championship. "We were playing Utah and they had us staying in Park City which is a suburban, bleached-vanilla, bland Mormon ski-town and Dennis lost his mind and couldn't play basketball," Luc says. "So Phil sent him to Las Vegas and told him to go and find Dennis. He came back appropriately seedy, he kicked%#*$, and we won the series."


With Jordan back and Rodman and Pippen in full flight, the Bulls quickly became the most closely watched team in the world. They would arrive in a city in a royal blue 747 chartered from MGM, take a bus to the back of a hotel, where they had checked in under aliases, and enter through the kitchen or the freight elevator to avoid the crowds.

"I would sign in under aliases Bruce Doull, Norman Gunston, Stagger Lee, which you could get away with over there."

There will never be another player like Rodman......

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Originally Posted by 23ska909red02

Very muchly appreciated.

The Bulls aren't 72-10 without Rodman. They probably still win that year, and MAYBE still pull off a second 3-peat (although a strong argument could be made that the Jazz would have beaten the Bulls at least one of those two tries if the Bulle didn't have Rodman), but there's no way they go 72-10.

I loved him as a player because he defined 'tough role player'. You were lucky for him to hit double digits in the points column any night, but his rebounding and his energy was infectious. I loved watching it.

And speaking of the Jazz, man, there can't be an appreciation thread for Rodman without people also appreciating 'Rodman vs. Malone'. That was so freaking awesome, watching these two play with an absolute, undeniable disdain for each other.

They would have each other locking arms all night, flopping all over the place, cursing out refs as they lobby for a foul to be called on each other... it was so hilarious, man.

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