The NBA has played host to many a superstar who have transcended the sport. Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, all these NBA legends were more than just basketball players. They left indelible marks on American popular culture and psyche. However, in terms of notoriety in the public eye, all of them pale in comparison to Dennis Rodman.
Advertisement
By no means was Rodman the greatest basketball player who ever lived. Rodman only averaged double-digit points once in his 14-year NBA career. But he made a name for himself through his relentless hustle and heart on defense and rebounding.
Typically, those traits are associated with blue-collar work. However, when the five-time NBA champion was off the court, he was quite far from a blue-collar worker.
In the 1990s, Rodman took over pop culture with his eccentric relationships and spontaneous actions. Shaquille O’Neal, who saw what it was like playing alongside Rodman during the peak of popularity recently talked about just how big Rodman was, in case this generation needed its memory refreshed.
“Shaq, Kobe, Dennis on the same team, who’s the biggest superstar?” O’Neal asked on The Big Podcast. “Dennis Rodman. He smells like garbage truck water, and he got models on him at the club.”
Rodman was quite the party-goer. His nightlife appeared as a distraction to some within NBA circles, but it didn’t prevent him from performing his role whenever he was on the court. From 1992 to 1997, there was no better rebounder than Rodman. He simply led the league in that regard.
O’Neal’s claim seems crazy, but superstardom isn’t only indicated by greatness on the court.
“Dennis was a rockstar,” Paul Pierce declared on the No Fouls Given podcast, while discussing Shaq’s remark. “When Shaq and Kobe were on the Lakers, they had wives. Dennis would be partying with celebrities after the game,” he said.
Pierce noted that even though Shaq and Kobe were uber famous, they weren’t rubbing shoulders with the who’s who of Hollywood. “They weren’t dating Madonna,” he pointed out. The former NBA champion also believes that if Rodman were in his prime while a member of the Lakers, his stardom would’ve reached unimaginable bounds.
“In his prime, he would have been bigger than life. I mean, he already was,” Pierce said.
It’s crazy to think about all of the wild things Rodman was doing outside of basketball. Thankfully for his sake, social media didn’t exist at the time!
