(Do you keep up with Isiah and Laimbeer and the rest of the bad boys?)
I really don’t stay in touch with anybody. If I see ’em, we talk about the old days, but other than that, I really don’t stay in touch.
(You came of age in Detroit—won a couple of championships, had a child, got married. Then Daly left, the team fell apart, you got divorced. It kind of ended on a bad note.)
Yeah, but I turned a bad thing into a good thing. And for me to do what I did, go and change my image, put the gun to my head, and say, “Okay, I want to shoot—kill—this imposter,” that’s when everything changed for me individually.
(Then you reinvented yourself in San Antonio.)
I’d say, “revealed,” not “reinvented.” I just let out what was already inside. Whatever. Everything that I’ve done since I left Detroit happened for a reason. It has a place. I had a coming-out party in San Antonio. It started with me hanging out with gays, having a good time. Some people seem surprised there was an active gay community down there in white-ass, conservative Texas. Hello. There’s an active gay community everywhere. Get over it.
(Your NBA career peaked in Chicago.)
Not just my career. The three years I was in Chicago were probably the most incredible three years that I’ve had as a human being. I don’t ever think I was loved as much as I was loved all over the place in Chicago—the city, the team. The love of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and all those guys, I was like, “I can’t believe this shit.” I mean the city of Chicago embraced me, gave me the opportunity to be myself and do what I do—give a rock-star performance on the court, give a rock-star performance off the court. I did everything in the book while I was playing with Chicago. They let me be myself—an independent, free, black motherfucker. It was just unreal.
(The Bulls road show. What was that like?)
It was like having God, Moses, the Pope, the Beatles, Elvis, the Rolling Stones, and the Grateful Dead all in one. It was scary. Huge crowds, media chased you everywhere. When we were playing Utah in the Finals one year, we stayed at a hotel across the street from the Delta Center in Salt Lake. When it came time to head over to the arena, we hopped on the bus, and it took like a half-hour or 45 minutes to get across the fucking street—maybe 100 feet. People were blocking the bus to take pictures, yelling, screaming. Crazy shit.
The first year we played the Jazz in the playoffs was just the opposite. Phil Jackson wanted to get us away from all the craziness and put us up in a hotel in a little town called Park City—population like 7,000—about a half-hour outside Salt Lake. Nothing to do. It was so quiet I was going fucking crazy. So I chartered a jet, flew to Vegas, gambled all night, got back on the jet and arrived at the Delta Center about a half-hour before the team bus arrived. Phil Jackson cornered my bodyguard, George Triantafillo.
“Tell me you haven’t been out all night,” he said.
“Oh, no, boss,” said George.
Phil knew he was lying, but he let it go. That’s the great thing about Phil. As long as you’re delivering on court, he doesn’t give a shit.
Michael Jordan, a man who has been known to gamble a bit himself, came over to George, and asked, “How’d our boy do?”
“He kicked ass,” said George.
Later Phil was like, “What are you guys doing after practice?”
“I dunno,” George said. “Maybe go get something to eat.”
True.
“Make sure the plane’s ready,” I told George when Phil was out of earshot.
We’d be getting “something to eat” all right … in Las-fuckingVegas, Nevada. Oh, and we won both games down there—didn’t miss a beat.
(Partying the night before a game doesn’t sound like a good idea. Don’t you think you would have played better without all the partying?)
Nope. I learned that lesson in Seattle in 1996. We were leading in the finals three games to none, on the verge of a sweep, and suddenly I decided to pull a David Robinson. I stopped partying, got a good night’s sleep three days running, and we lost two in a row. Major fuck-up. So the night before Game 6 in Chicago, I started the evening with Sake Bombers at my favorite sushi restaurant, and then spent a little time at Crobar’s with a lesbian deejay who billed herself as “Psychobitch,” before ending my evening with breakfast at the Third Coast. So how’d we do? We kicked Sonic ass. I got 19 rebounds, nine points, five assists, and drove Shawn Kemp nuts on defense. At least one reporter said I was the MVP of the game, and Sonics coach George Karl gave me credit for the win. The final score was 87-75, giving us the championship in six.
(Was it all downhill after Chicago?)
I think I got spoiled in Chicago. Phil Jackson knew where I was coming from. Phil had a sense of me, knew he had a guy who would go out there and do the dirty work. I was the missing piece on that team. He was like, “Y’know, Dennis, you’re gonna play for me no matter what. I like your style. I like your dedication. I love what you do. I love how you care.” He knew I wasn’t a crazy motherfucker, that there was a method to my madness, y’know? He liked my passion, whether it was on the court putting my balls on the line for the team or partying my ass off ’til dawn.
(You have anything to say about your short stays in L.A. and Dallas?)
If I had to do it over, I wouldn’t do it over. L.A. was just a bad fit. When you get past all my antics, I’m all about team and winning. There was no team in L.A.; there were the Hatfields and the McCoys. In Dallas, Mark Cuban used me to put fannies in seats. We didn’t win, and I got a little bad ink—seems like nobody wanted to see David Stern naked—and my ass was gone. That’s the way it goes.
The NBA is a business, and the minute you start thinking somebody gives a shit about you as a human being as opposed to how you’re going to impact the bottom line, you’re headed for a fall. It’s a lesson that I’m still trying to learn. Just as in any other business, you’re pretty much a number. They use you. You serve a purpose for a period of time. As long as you can deliver, you’re cool. When the day comes that you can’t play, nobody will return your phone calls.
(Speaking of David Stern, when you were in Dallas, and the whole time you were in the league for that matter, you had this ongoing battle with the commissioner. Have any parting shots?)
Well, with that guy, you win some, and you lose some. But the last time out, you might say he outsmarted himself. When Stern heard that ESPN was producing Rodman on the Rebound, he got his panties in a wad and started knocking the show in the newspapers, saying it wasn’t one of ESPN’s “strongest moments,” or some shit like that. Not that he’d seen the show, you understand. Well, the guys at ESPN freaked out—Stern is a powerful dude—and rescheduled the series so it wouldn’t run in primetime. It ended up airing at like 1:00 a.m. in New York and 11:00 p.m. in L.A., next to nobody saw it. On the record, we were jumping Stern’s ass for censorship and shit, but when the cameras were off, we were secretly whoopin’ it up. I mean, Stern himself couldn’t have produced a show that made me look any worse than Rodman on the Rebound—my ass hits rock bottom on camera—and, thanks to him, nobody sees it. Had it been up to us, the son of bitch would have aired at like 3:00 a.m. on Al Jazeera.
So here’s a first: thanks, Dave, for covering my ass.
(Since Stern became commissioner 20 years ago, there’s been this proliferation of guaranteed, long-term, megamillion-dollar contracts. What’s that doing to the league?)
Pretty much fucking it up.
The game is not like it used to be. Back in the day, every time you played, every time you went to practice, you had to fight for your position; you had to fight for your job. Today you ain’t gotta fight for shit because they’re paying players millions no matter what. In the game today, you don’t have to do a damn thing.
(So there’s no incentive.)
They are killing incentive. Say a player has a guaranteed contract in his pocket: $50 million for six years. What is there left for him to prove? What is there left for him to do? Nothing. He’s
got the Rolls, the private jet, all the beautiful women he wants, the big house for his momma. He’s thinking his ass has arrived. Wrong. To really make it in the NBA, you’ve got to win basketball games, championships. Nobody gives a fuck how much money you make when you’re out there on the court.
(Do you know a player who got the big contract and nothing ever happened?)
I’m not naming any names, but many players have got “the big contract” and nothing ever happened. Teams are paying millions and millions of dollars to guys who can’t play—they’re hurt or whatever. Still you can’t get rid of them: nobody else wants them or maybe nobody can afford them, and so you are stuck with the big contracts. Meanwhile, there’s a ton of players who would give up their $50 million—well, maybe not all of it—to win a championship. A ton of players. That’s the ultimate goal, and it’s not easy. Ask Karl Malone and Charles Barkley, who leapfrogged from one team to another, taking major pay cuts, trying to get a ring. These are great players, future Hall of Famers, but they couldn’t get it done.
(How would you fix the contract problem?)
Performance incentives. Pay guys some kind of reasonable base salary, and then make ’em earn the rest of it. “You get this many rebounds, and I give you this many dollars. You score so many points, and I give you so many dollars.” At the end of the year, you say, “Let’s see what kind of level you’re playing at. Maybe we don’t want to lose you, so we’ll up that base salary and the incentive pay a bit.” The way it is now, play good, play bad, don’t matter—it all pays the same.
(What advice do you have for young kids coming into the NBA today?)
Long term, it’s about the game. Ten years down the road, nobody will give a shit how much money Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, or you made playing basketball. They’ll care about what we did for the game. Aside from that, realize you’re blessed to be a part of it and that you’re not just here to make some fat cat a lot of money. So do it to the best of your ability, do it to where you feel satisfied. You, nobody else.
(What would you tell kids about how to handle themselves off court? You’ve certainly had your moments.)
I’d tell them to stay in control of what you’re doing; don’t stray away from what you believe. Don’t let anybody, the team, the NBA, your agent, your relatives, or your friends steer you in the wrong direction. They may pay you this, pay you that, but they’ve got no right to tell you how to think and act when you’re not on the court, whether you’re partying your ass off or teaching Sunday school. I mean, you get paid to play. You get paid to play. You don’t get paid to be nice. You don’t get paid to do a fucking thing but play basketball. All the other shit is up to you—deal with it how you want. If you want to be a nice guy and do community service, go do that. Don’t do it so people will like you. Don’t play that game. If your heart ain’t in it, don’t do it. The NBA shouldn’t control your life, shouldn’t say you have to go do this, do that. That’s your choice, not theirs. They have no right to tell you who the fuck you’re gonna be.
(Is there life after basketball?)
Guys like Magic, he’s into so much shit, it’s unbelievable—business stuff going on all over the place. He even used to own a piece of Fat Burger, and still may, I dunno. He could make a living just making occasional personal appearances if he wanted to. It’s harder for other guys, guys who weren’t superstars. They don’t know what to do with themselves. They’re not gonna sit behind a desk. They’re not gonna sit around the house all day. There are only so many rounds of golf you can play. Most of ’em, after a couple of years, you don’t hear their name any more. It’s like, “You’re out of the game, bye, done, you’re over. Sit home and count your money.”
I’m lucky. I transcended the game. My fame goes beyond basketball, beyond the borders. I was in China a couple of weeks ago, got mobbed everywhere I went, people shouting—do your own Chinese accent—“Dennis Rodman! NBA! Dennis Rodman! NBA!” How the fuck do people in China know about Dennis Rodman? “Dennis Rodman” has become like a worldwide brand name. I stand for something beyond basketball. Freedom, I’d say. Others might call it license.
(Anything you’d like to add?)
Yeah. If I could, I’d take those young players—high school, college, the NBA—wherever they’re lacing up, grab hold of their jerseys just like Isiah did to me, punch the pure-D shit out of them just like Isiah, and tell them, “Feel it! Smell it! Taste it! Enjoy every bite! ’Cause the motherfucker only lasts a short period of time, a blink of an eye.”
A blink of a fucking eye.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
FAMOUS AS I WANNA BE
Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles, June 12, 2005. I was running late. Not the first time. The changeover from Dennis into “Dennis Rodman” was taking a little longer than usual. This time, it was a footwear problem. So everybody was waiting around in the suite: Darren, his fiancé Symone, and Thaer in the bedroom, and the reporter in the living room peeking through the door. I had put on this new pair of black “Wellington boots,” I guess you’d call them, with these hideous straps across the instep. I looked at them this way, that way, thought about changing shoes, then ended up cutting the straps off. Crisis averted—but I still wasn’t satisfied.
In the elevator going downstairs, I kept messing with my shirttails. When the door opened to the lobby, I asked Darren what he thought of my one-shirttail-in, one-shirttail-out look; and he glanced over his shoulder, gave his usual “whatever” shrug, and kept walking. Symone waded in. Then, as I stood there with my ass propping the elevator door open, she tucked in the right shirttail so it matched the left, bloused the bottom of the shirt over my belt, stepped back, and pronounced me, “Done.” Meanwhile, I’m thinking there are worse things in life than having a beautiful woman dress you.
After over an hour in the making, the ensemble was complete. Showtime. We strolled through the lobby, and I could see the outfit was working, heads turning as we took a hard left and went down the stairs to navigate the red carpet, the first phase of Sports Spectacular 2005—the 20th annual benefit for the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
If you see me on the street on a typical day. I’ll be wearing drawstring pants, a long-sleeve T-shirt, baseball cap, and basketball shoes, which I’ll shed the first chance I get and be walking around in socks. That’s like my uniform—the real Dennis. But when I’m making an appearance as “Dennis Rodman,” that’s a whole ’nother deal. I’ve got to look the part. My fans, my sponsors, have certain expectations and I meet them—like on this night.
I had on an extra-long, five-button, navy blue “suit” jacket that hit me about mid-thigh and looked kind of like a riding jacket; an open-neck, patterned, satiny white shirt; jeans; and the Wellington boots. I had tied a red bandana around my head and topped it off with a chocolate-colored, felt fedora with a blue headband. I accessorized with shades, about five pounds of multicolored necklace— turquoise, orange, yellow, blue—and the usual collection of piercing hardware.
Normally I turn my head into a human pincushion with hoops in my ears, nose studs, a lip ring. On more festive occasions, I have dressier earrings and this stud about an inch-and-a-half long that replaces the ring in my lower lip. Son of a bitch sets off metal detectors at the airport—anything for fashion. Almost. You’ll be happy to hear I no longer wear any hardware in my nether regions.
So how’s my fashion sense?
“When it’s time to make a statement, he knows how to make a statement,” said Wendell, who is currently a fashion designer. “He doesn’t have a fashion consultant or a stylist or anything like that. He does it all himself.”
So you can blame it all on me—and my tailors.
“He gets mostly everything made. Mostly at Lords or Von Dutch,” Thaer told the reporter.
That’s not a luxury—it’s a necessity. As Wendell said:“You’re not gonna find anything off the rack in his size.”
The way it works is: I’ll go up to maybe, Lords in L.A., pick out a fabric, and then
, if it’s a shirt, we’ll talk about the cut, what we want to do with the collar, cuffs—pick out the buttons, this, that. Then they make it for me. Some stores give me the stuff for the free PR. Others charge me a lot of money.
A lot of money.
When I’m headed out of town to some event, I’ll pack a bunch of different stuff—shirts, jackets, hats, shoes—and when it comes time to get dressed, I’ll try this, try that, and put an outfit together depending on how I’m feeling at the moment. Sometimes that takes a while.
“It takes him forever to put on a pair of sweats,” said Wendell.
“Like a woman?” asked the reporter.
“Like two women,” said Wendell.
But when I’m done, even fashion hotshot Wendell admits I have the knack.
“He knows how to make a bunch of avant-garde items look like an outfit,” Wendell said. “He knows how to do it, man. And like I say, he’s doing it all himself. It’s all him.”
And unless I’m headed for the Academy Awards or something like that, it’s all pretty much spontaneous.
“If he’s going to a major, major event, then the outfit is thought out,” said Wendell. “If he’s gonna be on television, like he’s going to the Jay Leno show or something like that, then the outfit is thought out.”
The Cedars-Sinai outfit was not thought out. It was a spur-ofthe-moment creation. Still I felt good about it as I turned the corner onto the red carpet and was blinded by lights from around 10 television cameras. These guys who looked like secret service agents—black suits, wires trailing out of their ears—herded the Rodman entourage in the right direction. One television reporter yelled, and I stepped up to the red-velvet rope separating me from the media and started yapping.
Normally, you would expect the red carpet to be outside. But inside or outside, it serves the same purpose. Fans think the red carpet is a way of making celebrity guests feel special. Actually, it’s a way to accommodate the media without asking much of the stars or, for that matter, the PR people. For a big, celebrity-studded event, there would be no way to accommodate the hundreds of interview requests. So the PR people strike a bargain, line the photographers and reporters up behind a velvet rope and say, “You stay here, and we’ll troop the celebrities by.” So instead of having reporters and photographers swarming all over the place, pushing and shoving, creating havoc, you have a nice, controlled environment: the red carpet. The media get a sound bite, quote, video, or photo without too much work, and it’s easy for the celebs, too. They breeze through, stop to talk to whoever they want to, ignore the rest, and get on with it.
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