The Chicago Bulls going after Dennis Rodman in the 1995 off-season, came as a shock to the NBA community. There were plenty of players in Chicago who did not like the idea of ‘The Worm’ playing in a Bulls uniform. The disdain stemmed from what he had done with the Bad Boy Pistons. It needed approval from everyone, and first and foremost, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. The latter got a lot of beating at the hands of Rodman and other Pistons in the late 80s. As soon they joined forces, Rodman laid out a plan for how he’d use the $15,000,000 that he’d make with the Bulls in 3 years. However, within a year of his contract, he claimed to have ‘topped’ the most famous man in Chicago.
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He wasn’t entirely wrong, people did embrace the former Detroit forward like there was no bad blood between him and the Bulls. His following became so insane that a mural of Rodman by a clothing store became a tourist attraction, causing traffic delays.
Dennis Rodman was topping Michael Jordan in popularity contests in Chicago
In his 2006 book, I Should Be Dead By Now, Dennis Rodman jotted down how a mural of his would become a tourist attraction where fans would pull over to the side of a busy highway to take pictures.
“I had been in Chicago less than a year, and I was topping Michael Jordan. I would even become a landmark,” Rodman wrote. “Me, Michael Jordan, and a Cubs’ player by the name of Ryne Sandberg had a deal with this men’s clothing store, and they painted a huge mural of the three of us on the side of a building just off the freeway near downtown.”
The following Tweet by “Chicago History ™️” shows one of those murals.
He then revealed how his mural would delay traffic, “After a while, this got to be such a huge thing that, in the mornings, when the radio stations were doing traffic reports, they would say shit like, ‘Well, from O’Hare to Dennis, it’s 15 minutes,’ or ‘From Dennis to downtown, it’s five’.”
Rodman then told how the mural was painted over because of the havoc it was creating on a busy road while crediting his instant stardom to his bravery in expressing himself.
Dennis did successfully implement his plan
When Dennis came to Chicago he had a plan of putting 1/3rd of his earning in the next three years in a bank, living off its interest, and partying off the rest of it.
He did exactly that while also helping MJ and Scottie win 3 championships along the way. Rodman was one of the big-3 in the Bulls team in those 3 years and there was no way they would be half as successful as they were without him.
Meanwhile, he was spending almost all his hard-earned NBA earnings and probably even the 5 mil in the bank, just for living life to the fullest. By his current net worth, which is just around $500,000 you can bet nobody partied harder than Dennis Rodman.
