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The Wit And Wisdom Of Dennis Rodman
[New York Post]
SPORTS
LIKE HIM OR NOT, WORM CAN SAVE NBA
By GEORGE WILLIS
--------------------------------------------
THIS JUST in: Dennis Rodman yesterday
ripped the leadership of the players union
and Commissioner David Stern over the
gloomy status of the NBA lockout.
"I could go in there and do a better job
than that," Rodman said in Manhattan. He
made other disparaging remarks, too, but
"Rodman Rips Stern" isn't exactly a news
flash.
What's more interesting is what could be a
by-product of this extending NBA labor
dispute: a before-now unthinkable alliance
between Stern and Rodman, two men who
couldn't be more different, working
together to save the NBA. Talk about your
strange bedfellows.
Say what you will about Rodman and his
quirks. But at the rate things are going
now, there will soon be a day when Stern
and the NBA will need Dennis Rodman more
than Rodman will need the league. If that
isn't enough to scare the players and
owners into some kind of agreement, I don't
know what will.
If things continue on their current path,
the damage between the league and it fans
will be substantial. One of the way to help
mend those wounds is someone of Rodman's
peculiar appeal.
There are hints of this inevitable
conclusion whenever Rodman is in the news.
Yesterday, he was in the city of the
Knicks, going through the half-hearted
motions of a personal appearance in lower
Manhattan where he was hired along with
actress Marisa Tomei and the overexposed
Mills Lane to serve as judges to Mazda's
naming of the most "out-of-the box"
individual in the country.
Rodman, dressed in floppy brown hat,
sunglasses, black jeans and a red
Blackhawks jersey, actually showed up on
time, thinking the car company that
sponsored the event was going to award him
with one of its automobiles.
Sorry, Dennis.
Instead, he got a strange-looking trophy
for being voted as one of America's Top Ten
"Out of the Box" personalities. That wasn't
exactly news, either.
The point is that even with an Oscar winner
like Tomei in the building along with "Ally
McBeal" co-star Jane Krakowski, Rodman was
the center of attention from the assembled
media that wanted to know everything from
his thoughts on the lockout to whether he
was sleeping with his wife.
What the car company knew when it hired
Rodman in the first place and what the NBA
will discover whenever it decides to resume
play is that Rodman is a draw, and the
league will need every bit of its drawing
power to lure back fans. It will need
Michael Jordan, Grant Hill and Patrick
Ewing and Karl Malone. And it will need
Rodman, who attracts his own legions of
fans from the dare-to-be different crowd.
Say what you want about Rodman; he commands
attention by getting into situations you
just don't make up. We spent Thanksgiving
reading about his drunken marriage to
actress Carmen Electra and his New York
reunion with his old flame, Scores stripper
Stacey Yarborough. We also read about the
Los Angeles cocktail waitress who is suing
Rodman for grabbing her breast while she
was working.
These are news items that make Stern
cringe. No, Rodman is not exactly
role-model material. But by the time the
lockout is over and the NBA moves to
re-establish itself in the minds of its
fans again, even negative attention will be
good attention. And Rodman attracts
attention.
Yesterday, he was asked about Electra and
whether or not he wanted to escape the
one-week marriage.
"She's a very classy woman, no matter what
my manager or anybody said about that,"
Rodman said.
He was asked about living in the public
eye.
"You really can't go out in public because
they always want to take pictures," he
said.
When asked about the lockout, Rodman, of
course, didn't align himself with either
side.
"They keep saying the same [stuff] over and
over," Rodman said of the union leadership.
"I can do a better job than that. They're
not going about it the right way. Besides,
it all has to go through David Stern. He
has all the power and he doesn't give a
damn because he is going to get paid no
matter."
It should be pointed out that Rodman,
according to union sources, has not
attended any of the meetings or taken part
in any of the conference calls. He offered
no proposals or solutions yesterday, only,
"I can do a better job than that."
He's not even sure if he wants to play
again.
"Last year, we won the championship but I
wasn't happy that we won the game, I was
happy that [the season] was finally over,"
he said.
But then in the next breath he said, "You
miss the competitiveness of knowing you can
keep going out and doing your job to the
highest level. That's what you miss."
There also was that purple cast on his
right wrist. Rodman said it's an old injury
and vowed that he would be ready to play
whenever the season starts.
The NBA had better hope he is. He'll be
needed to save this league.