Dennis Rodman
Playing small forward in his early years before becoming a power forward, Rodman earned NBA All-Defensive First Team honors seven times and was voted NBA Defensive Player of the Year twice.
He led the NBA in rebounds per game for a record seven consecutive years and won five NBA championships. His biography at NBA.com states that he is “arguably the best rebounding forward in NBA history.“
On April 1, 2011, the Pistons retired Rodman’s No. 10 jersey, and he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame later that year.
Rodman experienced an unhappy childhood and was shy and introverted in his early years. After aborting a suicide attempt in 1993, he reinvented himself as a “bad boy” and became notorious for numerous controversial antics.
He repeatedly dyed his hair in artificial colors, had many piercings and tattoos, and regularly disrupted games by clashing with opposing players and officials.
He famously wore a wedding dress to promote his 1996 autobiography “Bad As I Wanna Be“. Rodman pursued a high-profile affair with singer Madonna and was briefly married to actress Carmen Electra.
Post-NBA years
After his NBA career, Rodman took a long break from basketball and concentrated on his film career and on wrestling.
After a longer hiatus, Rodman returned to play basketball for the Long Beach Jam of the newly-formed American Basketball Association during the 2003–2004 season, with hopes of being called up to the NBA midseason.
In the following 2004–2005 season, he signed with the ABA’s Orange County Crush and the following season with the league’s Tijuana Dragons.
After retiring from wrestling, Rodman became Commissioner of the Lingerie Football League in 2005.
The return to the NBA never materialized, but on January 26, 2006, it was announced that Rodman had signed a one-game “experiment” deal for the UK basketball team Brighton Bears of the British Basketball League to play Guildford Heat on January 28, and went on to play three games for the Bears.
In spring 2006, he played two exhibition games in the Philippines along with NBA ex-stars Darryl Dawkins, Kevin Willis, Calvin Murphy, Otis Birdsong and Alex English. On April 27, they defeated a team of former Philippine Basketball Association stars in Mandaue City, Cebu and Rodman scored five points and grabbed 18 rebounds.
On May 1, 2006, Rodman’s team played their second game and lost to the Philippine national basketball team 110–102 at the Araneta Coliseum, where he scored three points and recorded 16 rebounds.
In 2005, Rodman made two visits to Finland. At first, he was present at Sonkajärvi in July in a wife-carrying contest. However, he resigned from the contest due to health problems. In November, he played one match for Torpan Pojat of the Finland’s basketball league, Korisliiga.
That same year, Rodman published his second autobiography, “I Should Be Dead By Now”, and promoted this by sitting in a coffin.
On April 4, 2011, it was announced that Rodman would be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
In March 2013, Rodman arrived at the Vatican City during voting in the papal conclave for the selection of a new pope. The trip was organized by an Irish gambling company. “I’m just promoting this website. It’s a gambling website, and it’s about people who are going to bet on the new pope, and if he’s black, you get your money back,” said Rodman.
International outreach
On February 26, 2013, Rodman made a trip to the reclusive North Korea with Vice Media to host basketball exhibitions. He met North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un, leading many reporters to speculate that Rodman was the first American that Kim had met.
Rodman and his travel party were the first known Americans to have met Kim. He later called Kim “his friend” and suggested that President Barack Obama “should pick up the phone and call” Kim since the two leaders were basketball fans.
On May 7, after reading an article from The Seattle Times, Rodman sent out a tweet asking Kim to release American prisoner Kenneth Bae, who had been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea.
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