Rodman’s impact

“You got the great Michael Jordan, the great Scottie Pippen, the great Phil Jackson. But if you take me away from this team, do they still win a championship? I don’t think so.”

The quote is from basketball Hall-of-Famer Dennis Rodman in Episode 3 of the ESPN documentary The Last Dance. It is an assertion that has a lot of meat in it but in the end I believe would be hard to argue against.

Acquired by the Chicago Bulls in 1995 in a trade with the San Antonio Spurs, a lot of questions hovered around the arrival of Rodman in the Windy City.

It was not only a question of whether he fits in the system of the then-Bulls team looking to get back to the National Basketball Association summit.

Making things tricky was the fact that Rodman once played for the “hated” Detroit Pistons who made life tough and rough for Jordan and the Bulls when they were still trying to make their way up in the late 1980s.

Rodman and the “Bad Boys” of the Motor City pounded and bullied the Bulls no end and had the number of the latter for most of the time.

But while such pounding and roughhousing only made the Bulls stronger as they eventually made their way to the top of the NBA, still the animosity persisted among the personalities involved up to this point it turns out.

Then there was the Bulls getting a Rodman who by then had embraced “freedom” in all its forms. You had Rodman in varying hair colors, cross-dressing, piercing and tattoos in different parts of the body and other dramas along the way.

But once the 1995–96 NBA season got going and progressed, there was no denying that Rodman fitted and surely made the Bulls a winner.

And winning came in big ways, with him helping Chicago to the then-best all-time record of 72-10 in his first year with the team and winning a championship at the expense of the Seattle Supersonics.

He capped things off by being a big part of the team’s second three-peat in the ‘90s in 1998 with another finals series victory over the Utah Jazz.

Rodman’s great impact in his three years with the Bulls was definitely undeniable.

There were disruptions here and there from his part but when it came to buckling down and playing to win he was all in.

He did it the best way he knew how — rebounding and defense — which proved to be a great complement to the leadership and big-game mentality of Jordan, the all-around play of Pippen and the coaching genius of Jackson.

Many say Rodman completed the puzzle for Chicago to return to the top and I believe it is an apt description.

Would the Bulls have won all those championships in their second three-peat quest sans Rodman? With greatness abounding from that team it is not a stretch to say they could have found ways to win.

But still for that time a guy like Rodman and what he brings were solid to have. Good thing the Bulls found him and now they are more so a legend.

POSTSCRIPT. The good reception continued for The Last Dance as for the second week it posted solid average viewer numbers. In numbers shared by ESPN, Episodes 3 and 4 of the 10-part documentary which aired on Monday (Manila time) averaged 5.9 million viewers across ESPN and ESPN 2. Combined with the premiere episodes, which aired on April 20, the documentary series now represents the four most-viewed original content broadcasts on ESPN Networks since 2004 and is averaging 6 million viewers across its first four episodes. Episodes 5 and 6 of The Last Dance, which spotlights the last championship run of the Bulls in the 1990s, will air on May 4.