GQ Sports (DR) / NBA (DR)
Dennis Rodman was a emotional, a blood, the skid was never far away when it started to get excited. And one day, during a meeting between the Bulls and the Nets, he totally cracked and was the author of an unacceptable gesture.
Dennis Rodman has always been a very special character in NBA history, already because his style of play was unique and will undoubtedly never be reproduced in the league again. Excellent defender, excellent rebounder, he was on the other hand much more delicate offensively, which is why he sometimes ended up with totally crazy stats lines. No one could take 25 rebounds without scoring a single point today.
But it is especially at the level of his personality that The Worm was a character on the margins. He liked to dye his hair in all colors, he liked to go out and rub shoulders with celebrities even during the season, he liked to party and love … Sleeping with a planetary star on his franchise’s training ground would be a huge scandal today, but it was everyday life inside the Bulls in the late 90s ′.
Dennis Rodman’s header on a referee
But if these arabesques are laughing today because they seem so distant, Dennis Rodman also had an unstable side that was sometimes very disturbing … He for example already left his teammates during the Finals to go to a big wrestling evening, or, more serious yet, he has already unstuck to the point of head butting a referee! The images are quite glaring.
Such an incident would make the front page of all the major media today as the facts are so serious … But at the time, in a very different social context it must be said, Dennis Rodman got away with “only” 6 games suspension! He was also fined $ 20,000 and lost nearly $ 30,000 per missed encounter, for a total of at least $ 200,000, which ultimately isn’t much for such an attack.
The strangest thing in this sequence, beyond the fact that Rodman takes off his jersey, is Phil Jackson’s smile on the bench. Either he laughs yellow at the indiscipline of his player and this scandalous gesture, or he is really amused by the decisions of his star interior. In any case, these are images that we hope to never see again on an NBA field.
Dennis Rodman has always been unique in his attitude and the slip was never far away. That night during the meeting against the Nets, he undoubtedly exceeded all imaginable limits in the NBA. Fortunately, the league was much less repressive at the time.
