Bad as I Wanna Be (Autobiography) (1996)

Written by Dennis Rodman with Tim Keown
Grade: A

The only thing Dennis Rodman says that I don’t believe is that he wasn’t aware of Demolition Man‘s existence until after he got his hair dyed blonde upon joining the Spurs. Do you know how crazy of a coincidence that would have to be?

Summary

After a long list of people that he acknowledges that ranges from God to Howard Stern, we open with a quote from Pearl Jam’s “Alive”:

“”Is something wrong?” She said
Of course there is
“You’re still alive,” she said
Do I deserve to be?
Is that the question?
And if so… if so
Who answers?
Who answers?”

In Chapter One: New and Improved (One Night, One Gun, One Decision), Dennis Rodman talks about one fateful night in April in 1993. He sat in the cab of his pickup truck with a rifle in his lap in the parking lot at The Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit, deciding whether or not he should kill himself. At this moment in time, he was ready to leave this life behind if it meant he could keep from being the man he was becoming. This is after a lot of success too. In 1993, he already had two championships with the Detroit Pistons, he was a two-time Defensive Player of the Year, he was a two-time All-Star, he was on his way to winning his second straight rebounding title, and he was very popular in a blue-collar city like Detroit because of his style of play. He had everything he could have wanted material-wise and was a huge success story considering where he came from in the Oak Cliff projects in Dallas. Unfortunately, on the inside, he had nothing but an “empty soul”. Earlier that night, he wrote a note to his friend Sheldon Steele explaining how he was feeling, dropped it off at his house, and drove to the arena. It wasn’t meant to be a suicide note, just a note letting him know he wasn’t sure he could continue on his current path. He went to the arena to get in a workout at around 2AM or 3AM, a regular occurrence for Rodman who talks about how time means nothing to him, and he just does things whenever he wants.

To try and work out the anxiety and pain he was feeling, this is what Rodman would do, putting on some of his favorite band Pearl Jam to accompany the exercise. At the time, he was depressed. This was his last season with the Pistons, and they weren’t doing well compared to previous years. They were sixth in their division, and they didn’t make the playoffs. Three years before that, they were world champions. Now, their roster was being torn apart piece by piece, and Rodman felt like he was being torn apart just as well. Jamming out to Pearl Jam, Rodman gets in a two-hour workout, closes the place, and hangs in his truck. As he walked towards his truck, he just kept thinking about his gun. Feelings of never belonging and never feeling like he deserved to get as far as he did consumed him. He turned on some more Pearl Jam in the car and grabbed the gun. Right there, he knew he could go through with suicide. He couldn’t continue being the person everyone wanted him to be, or the athlete society wanted. He couldn’t be the “good soldier” and “good man off the court”, mentioning his failed marriage. He talks about trying to be loyal, but the organization wasn’t loyal to him because it traded everyone away. He tried to do all the right things but only got “pain and suffering in return”. Rodman felt all alone. With this moment, he wasn’t looking for attention. Considering he went to an empty parking lot in the middle of the night to potentially go through with this, this rings true. He didn’t want anyone else around. This was a battle with himself. This is when he started to think:

This isn’t me. This isn’t Dennis Rodman. You’re looking at somebody who’s living somebody else’s life.

He wanted everything to just go away because what his life turned into, changed him into somebody he didn’t even know. He started thinking about his family too like his aptly named father Philander, who left when he was three, his mother Shirley, his two younger sisters, and one of his sister’s friends Lorita Westbrook who convinced him to try out for the basketball team at Cooke County Junior College while he was working part-time cleaning cars at an Oldsmobile dealership. Six months before that job, he’d been fired as a graveyard-shift janitor at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport for stealing fifty watches from an airport gift shop. By that time, he grew nine inches in the two years since he graduated high school, allowing him to pursue basketball more seriously and get better each time he played. Rodman’s sisters were actually great basketball players too and were looked at as the stars of the family. Debra was an all-American at Louisiana Tech and Kim was an all-American at Stephen F. Austin. Rodman was the “runt of the family” who was living in their shadows. Despite his shyness and lack of skills, even as a kid in the projects, Rodman believed he would be famous someday, which seems unbelievable. Even so, he never thought basketball would be the trigger to make it all happen. Lorita Westbrook was the one who set up the tryout for Rodman for a little school in Gainesville, Texas, and helped make things happen.

Regardless, he’s now in that pickup in 1993, and all his confidence his gone. “The NBA life of adulation, money, and women was wearing me down. At that point I could have done without fame and money”.

Actually, he thought he would be happier working at the airport for $6.50 an hour. He goes back to his 82-day marriage to Annie and how he never gets to see his four-year-old daughter because of how things ended, and then he talks about the post-championship roster and how everyone left. When they were winning championships, Coach Chuck Daly told them, “Remember these times. It’ll never get any better”. At this point, Rodman agrees wholeheartedly. When Daly left the team after the 1991-92 season, the heart of the team left with him. Rodman realized he was two people: one person on the inside, another person on the outside. The person he wanted to kill was the person on the outside, as he argued that the guy on the inside was fine, he “just wasn’t getting out much”. The guy on the outside didn’t know what he wanted. This led to Rodman’s conclusion. He didn’t need the gun. He just needed to “kill” the guy on the outside and let the other one live. In his own mind, the two versions of Rodman walked in separate directions at ten paces, he turned and shot the imposter. He killed the Dennis Rodman that had “tried to conform to what everybody wanted him to be”. It killed the NBA “product” that was being used for entertainment. This allowed the real Rodman to be free, doing what he wants to do, no matter what anyone else thought. What could have been a tragedy turned into a positive turning point in Rodman’s life. Following this, he fell asleep in the car, only to be woken up by cops at his window. Sheldon called the police because he thought Rodman was going to kill himself, and it didn’t help matters much that the gun was on the passenger’s seat. Immediately after, the Pistons forced him to see a psychiatrist even though he insisted everything was cool now. He went and according to him, the psychiatrist came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with him.

Death has always held space in Rodman’s mind. He talks about his thoughts of suicide and somebody even killing him just because of the public life he lives. If he did kill himself that night, he makes a great point about how the fallout would have been everyone talking about how he was discreetly sending warning signals, some would say they saw it coming, or that he was on drugs, though he considers himself to be the most “antidrug guy who ever stepped onto an NBA court”. Regardless, he finishes the chapter saying this Dennis Rodman now is “The one you should have been seeing all along”. In Chapter Two: Nobody from Nowhere (A Janitor Makes It Big), we go further back to Dennis Rodman’s childhood. When the Texas State Fair was held in Dallas, about five miles from where he grew up in the Oak Cliff projects, the kids found a way to attend every year, despite never having money to go. What they would do was crawl in a manhole and go through a dark, underground sewage tunnel. It would take them right to the middle of the fair. Times like these make Rodman realize how easy everything is for him now. Strangely enough, it’s why he strives to make his life difficult. He’s not comfortable being comfortable. Actually, this alone explains a lot. Next, he talks about his father Philander, a member of the Air Force. He’s not a part of Rodman’s life and he hasn’t seen him in thirty years, so he doesn’t consider him a father, just a man who helped bring him into the world. He brings up how if someone were to ask an NBA player what they would be doing if they weren’t getting paid to play basketball, they’d say they’d either be dead or in jail since most come from “shitty backgrounds: projects, ghettos, no money, no father, no hope”. Rodman says this is true for himself specifically.

He was homeless for six months when he was 19 after leaving the house when he did nothing after high school and his mother had to provide for the pride of the family in his sisters. It was all about them. Fast forward to now, and he sees his influence on them, attributing Debra’s three tattoos to what he did. Now, his mother didn’t want to kick him out, but he could tell she didn’t want him hanging around either. He refers to himself during this period as a “suckdown”, meaning he’s a drain and he felt like he was this exactly on his family. This led to his homelessness because he didn’t have anywhere to go when he did leave. He was just out on the street, hanging around. He went from house to house, staying with friends, or he would walk all night long, roaming the streets of the Oak Cliff projects. Some nights, he slept on the streets, and he would find himself in a lot of shit. This is why he feels comfortable today with having conversations with homeless people because he’s been there. During this timeframe, he started his growth spurt. At 20, he became a janitor at the airport. During his graveyard-shifts, he started stealing a lot. One night, he reached his broom handle through the metal slats in the gate of a gift store to steal some watches, netting 50 of them. Oddly enough, he didn’t want them. He just did it to do it. Afterwards, he gave them all to friends and family because he wanted them to think he was a big shot. Of course, the hidden cameras saw him do it. The airport police arrested him. In the airport jail, he went through the whole routine of promising God he would never do this again and he decided to figure out a way to make it in life. The next day after his mom bailed him out, he gave up the names to everyone he gave a watch to, and the airport police collected. Once they got everything back, they dropped the charges. Two weeks later, he got fired from the job.

After this watch-stealing incident, he started playing basketball more often, which led to Lorita seeing him play. Funnily enough, the only time Rodman played organized basketball was his sophomore year of high school when he barely made JV and quit halfway through the season. After about 15 minutes of his tryout at the Cooke County Junior College, they offered him a scholarship, starting his career at a rather late 21 years old. Unfortunately, he played in only 16 games and flunked out after a semester, though he averaged a double double. Going back to Dallas, he wandered until assistant coach Lonn Reisman and Coach Jack Hedden of Southeastern Oklahoma reached out to him by showing up at his house one day to talk. He dodged all their calls but was forced to talk in this instance once he answered the door. Finally, they were able to convince him to join. The university is located in Durant, Oklahoma, a town with about 6,000 people. There, he encountered a lot of racism. Once again, he was lonely. Before he started school there, he worked at a basketball camp and befriended 13-year-old Bryne Rich who invited him over for dinner with his family. He eventually became close to the family and moved in, despite having a dorm in campus. Rodman bonded with Bryne, who was still dealing with the fact that he shot and killed his best friend accidentally a year prior. It was like they came into each other’s lives at a time when they both needed it. At the same time, it took a while for Byrne’s parents to be comfortable. Even though Rodman would help on the farm, Bryne’s mom Pat would hide from Rodman when he was looking for a ride after class. Sometimes when she would drive him, she would take the back roads so no one would see him in the car with her. Following this, he talks about how easy it would have been to resort to violence when dealing with the racist comments hurled in his directions, but Bryne was able to calm him down. Rodman still considers Bryne his best friend, and he helps dually run his construction company with him, Rodman Excavation.

After this, he talks about how the hard work he’s done helped mold his tough-mindedness, and it led to him having a great college career in that area. He was a NAIA all-American three years straight, averaged more than 25 points and 15 rebounds a game, led the NAIA in rebounding twice, and took the team to the NAIA championship in his junior year. Sadly, this only let him slide with the public in Durant. They were still racist, but he saw his success as letting him “slide” in their eyes. Rodman talks about the respect he has for Bryne’s father, his estrangement from his own family when getting close to Bryne’s family, and how the NBA saw him as a “project” coming out of college. It wasn’t until the Portsmouth Invitational in Virginia that he opened a lot of eyes. He went into it like a man possessed and busted everyone’s ass, and it led to the Pistons drafting him. Even going to a veteran team like this though, he was still hungry and eager to do anything to stay in the league. He knew what he came from and how hard it was to get where he did. Rodman was not going to throw this opportunity away. In Chapter Three: Wild Ride (The Pistons Do It Right), Rodman talks about his initial struggles in his rookie year. The day he signed his contract, he hyperventilated and had to see the team doctor. He was sick during the week leading up to that day, but he was just really excited about being there and achieving something so massive in his life. Chuck Daly and Pistons management saw this as a positive because they saw a kid who wanted to make it badly, someone who would do anything to have a career in the NBA. Next, he talks about Daly and how he referred to him as “God” and meant it. On the flip side, when he was on the San Antonio Spurs, he called Coach Bob Hill “Boner”, so you can see the respect he had for Daly.

In his rookie year, Rodman didn’t play that much and keeping all the energy he had inside was killing him, but good things happen to those who wait. Combining this with his desire to carve a spot in the rotation by any means necessary, Rodman decided to figure out how he can be a factor. It was defense and rebounding, two things that no one wants to do. Once Adrian Dantley went down with an injury and Rodman was inserted into the starting lineup, they won 20 out of the next 24 games after being just .500 with Dantley in the lineup. Rodman was inserted wherever defense was needed, and his nickname of “Worm”, a childhood nickname given to him because of the way he wiggled when playing pinball, helped him become a phenomenon. He played all out and became very popular with Detroit. The media started loving him too because he started saying “wild shit” all the time, as he put it. The Detroit “Bad Boys” won two back-to-back titles in the Magic/Bird era and became known for their rough, tough-as-nails, dogfight approach. Rodman makes an interesting point here about how Commissioner David Stern and other people around the league now think he plays dirty, but the problem isn’t him. He is doing the same things he used to do with the Pistons back then, only it’s not accepted now like it used to be.

“The NBA decided to promote us as the “Bad Boys”, and now six or seven years later it’s not cool to play like that.”

Rodman was a fan of this “give everything you have on the court” approach and is mad that the NBA has moved away from it because it has taken away a big aspect of the game, something a lot of basketball purists would agree with. He talks about the Pistons’ mentality being that of a football team. Their strengths were intimidation and playing smart. They knew they couldn’t stop Michael Jordan, so they’d let him get his and just stop everyone else. If he’s good enough to beat them by himself, then go ahead and try. He still argues they never went out with the intention of hurting others. He just chalks it up to playing basketball. If they did want to, they could put people in the hospital every night. Next, Rodman talks about everyone in the league hating Bill Laimbeer, Laimbeer loving it, and how Laimbeer’s biggest problem was that he never tried to hide his dirty tactics like Robert Parish. Laimbeer was always in the open about what he did, so the NBA kept their eyes on him more. After this, Rodman talks about how they would’ve won in 1988 had they not called a bad foul on Laimbeer, and it cost them three titles in a row, which I agree with because they should have beaten the Lakers that year. Then, he talks about their feud with Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics and how race is always brought up when facing someone like Bird. Of course, this led to the infamous press conference in 1987 after losing to the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals when Rodman thought the media overhyped Bird because he was white, with Isiah Thomas doubling down on this. The backlash was massive, prompting Thomas to call it a misunderstanding and did damage control by doing an apology press conference with Bird while Rodman went back to Bryne’s home in Oklahoma and read hate mail.

The next year, he talks about guarding Bird in the ECF again and how he couldn’t intimidate him. All he could do was watch tape and try to beat Bird to his spots. He gives Bird a lot of respect saying, “Bird was one of the few white guys who could play what people call the “Black Game”. When Rodman became a better player, Bird started respecting him too, though he would never outright say it because Rodman could tell Bird didn’t want to give him the satisfaction and vice versa. The year they finally overcame the Celtics, they didn’t really have a plan for the Los Angeles Lakers. They all thought the ECF was going to be the tough part and seemed to lay down for the Lakers once they got there, though again the Laimbeer foul that cost them Game 7 is brought up. Afterwards, he talks about how much he loved the physical aspect of basketball, pissing opposing players off, and shutting down the “pretty boys of the NBA”. He loves taking these types of players out of their rhythm, though he admits Michael Jordan was a tough cover, even calling the mental game of just thinking about beating Jordan “could wear you out”. Regardless, the Pistons won the title in 1988, and he was never happier. He brings up how the roster wasn’t always close off the court but when it came to basketball and winning games, they were best friends. He points to this as the main reason why the Spurs didn’t win when he was there. He calls the Trail Blazers team they beat in 1990 another team who was never ready to win, arguing that if he were on the team, they would’ve won at least one of the two times they were in the NBA Finals. They had all the athletes and physical tools, but that’s not the whole game, especially in the Finals. It was all about which team “has its mind right”. He gives credit to Clyde Drexler for finally winning a ring but not before talking about how they busted his ass in 1990.

Moving on, Rodman talks about crying when he won the Defensive Player of the Year the first time, and the women who flock to NBA players. Rodman never realized how many people have goals of taking advantage of someone with a little power and money. Also, people would try to offer him drugs or buy him drinks just to say they hung out with him. On one trip to Sacramento in his rookie year, he met model Annie Bakes in a bar after the game. They hung out and slept together and saw each other a few more times. Eventually, Annie was pregnant, and Rodman’s daughter Alexis was born on November 28th, 1988. Rodman and Annie didn’t get married because he wasn’t feeling it knowing the temptations of a professional athlete. Even so, they eventually got married a few years later in September of 1992 in Lake Tahoe, especially after Alexis kept asking when Rodman was going to marry her mother. Unfortunately, 82 days later his marriage ended. Of those 82 days, they were together for about a month. She’d live in Detroit with him for a couple of weeks, something would happen, and he’d send her back to Sacramento for a couple of weeks, then they’d come back. This repeated a few times. They married for the child, not love. He admits they both cheated, and he didn’t really hide it. The divorce happened mid-season, which was after Daly’s departure, adding to his depression. Additionally, Annie wouldn’t let Rodman see Alexis, and she even threatened to go to Europe so he could never see her again. Even so, he insists the depression he was dealing with was still 100% about basketball and not his personal life. Then, he talks about how badly management treated Daly despite his success, with them only giving him a one-year contract every year and the money not even being guaranteed. After this, everyone started leaving, including the guy who drafted him and the trainer!

Additionally, he had contract problems too. Pistons management agreed to restructure his contract after he exploded shortly after signing his six-year deal, but they went back on this when they had a bad season that year. For the first time, Rodman felt like more like a “commodity” than a person. So, he called them out on their bullshit and asked for a trade, resulting in a miserable two-year stay with the Spurs. To close the chapter, Rodman admits the divorce changed how he looked at people, how he trusted others, and how he looked at women and relationships. He says, “It put a force field around my whole life, and it made my distrust everything about this game and the life it provides for you”. He even starts to think his marriage was a setup from the start. Someone who apparently loves you turns around and tries to take all of your money because it belongs to her all of a sudden after 82 days? Good point, Dennis. He sees Alexis as being the reward for his marriage to Annie, but he admits he doesn’t see her as much as he’d like. One of his favorite Pearl Jam songs is “Daughter”, and he refers to the line of a daughter telling her father, “Don’t call me daughter”. It hits Rodman hard because he sees this line being similar to his relationship to his own father and he’s afraid of the cycle, with Alexis potentially saying the same thing to him.

Of course, this is just the beginning of the evolution of Dennis Rodman into the person he would become, and you can pinpoint the exact instances where this life has led him to where he is now.

My Thoughts:

Much like his hair, Dennis Rodman’s Bad as I Wanna Be is as colorful as you’d imagine. In a completely honest autobiography, the NBA legend tells all from his perspective and holds nothing back. As you learn more and more about Rodman’s humble beginnings in the Oak Cliff projects all the way to the middle of his first season with the Chicago Bulls, you learn not only about the “Worm’s” life but also the lens from which he looks life through. It’s a very introspective book and is straight from the heart. This is not the case of a celebrity who half-heartedly agreed to a book deal and let his co-writer do everything. With the way it’s written, you can tell this book is coming straight from the source. It may be a cash-grab just because Rodman was one of the biggest stars in the country at this point, but the content is not. Though he could’ve phoned it in because of his popularity, the authentic Rodman is being as truthful and as serious as he can be in explaining his life and why he is the way he is. Sure, Tim Keon probably did a majority of the organizing of his thoughts and such, but Bad as I Wanna Be is unapologetically Dennis Rodman. As someone who indulges on anything involving the basketball enigma and have seen how he thinks and speaks in countless interviews and documentaries he’s done over the years, the nonlinear storytelling approach and moving back and forth in the timeline due to Rodman going on tangents to explain things is 100% him. For this, we can take solace in knowing that there was serious care going into this book, and in doing so, it’s one of the most must-read autobiographies in the history of basketball. Funnily enough, it came out before he won three more championships with the Bulls.

As troubled as the man is, you come out of this book with a newfound respect and understanding of Dennis Rodman and who he turned into once he left the Pistons. He connects all the dots for you. It isn’t a mystery, as some may think. Though I don’t necessarily believe a licensed psychiatrist came to the conclusion that Rodman was completely fine after his suicidal thoughts, as a prescription for antidepressants would seem to be a suggestion at the very least, Rodman coming to this crossroads in his life is. Think about everything he details in this autobiography leading up to the night he was found in his truck at the parking lot of The Palace at Auburn Hills. Growing up in the projects is one thing that a lot of athletes and entertainers go through, and Rodman is no different. By itself, this would take a toll on most. However, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. He was bullied to no end and was called ugly and made to feel unimportant next to his superstar basketball sisters. Because of this, he had no idea what to do with his life when he graduated high school and just kind of did nothing until he started growing. He never felt embraced by the black community when he was a kid, which is why he doesn’t feel this connection as an adult. He notes that black women in particular teased him and never paid attention to him until he became rich and successful, which is why he sees their attraction at this point in his life as insincere. Rodman never felt embraced by the white community either because of the racism he encountered in Oklahoma and in his early years in the NBA until he started to become somebody. He’s not dumb. He knows that he’s only allowed certain privileges and is accepted by the public just because he’s a superstar athlete, bringing up how him as a black athlete or entertainer is somehow more accepted crossing racial boundaries than a normal everyday person.

With how society is even today, this is quite the astute assessment from someone who’s referred to as sometimes as “Rodzilla”.

The problems in his earlier life continue to shape his outlook. He found a family with the Pistons and a mentor and father figure in Coach Chuck Daly, one of the greatest coaches in the history of the league I might add. Sadly, once the championships were over and the team started to decline, Pistons management starting cleaning house. In today’s NBA culture, we’re used to seeing this, but you don’t really take into account the effect it has on young players such as someone like Rodman who was LITERALLY A JANITOR a few years prior to this. As he puts it, he was a janitor at the same age when Shaquille O’Neal was making millions and publishing his autobiography. Rodman’s road to success was much different than any superstar before or since, which is why his reactions to happenings in the NBA are totally different from everyone else. Despite his undying loyalty to his teammates and the franchise, Rodman felt betrayed by management. When you add in his contract issues where they kept giving him the runaround when he asked for a raise to compliment his on-court output, and a messy divorce happening at the exact same time, this would affect anyone from a mental standpoint. Most would turn to substance abuse, but Rodman tried to stay strong and put on a brave face because that’s what he’s used to doing. The man mentally imploded and decided basically to just say, “Fuck it”. There’s no other way to put it. Fuck everyone and everything. He’s done all he can at this point to live the life he’s supposed to according to the unofficial rules of society, and he was met with bullshit and lies to the point where he refused to take it anymore and be his own person for better or worse.

How can you not empathize with that?

That is the heart of Bad as I Wanna Be, and whether you’re a fan or not of the Rodman phenomenon, hearing the perspective from his words directly can resonate with anyone going through a midlife crisis or mental health struggles of any kind. This is a book that champions individualism. It’s not selfishness. Rodman put his trust in a lot of things and a lot of people and did what he was supposed to. He gave everyone a chance. When he wasn’t met with the same energy he put out and was consistently let down, he finally had enough and hit a breaking point. Why care about them if they don’t care about you? Look past the hair, the women’s clothes, the tattoos, and the piercings, and look at what Rodman has been through to get to that stage in his life. Can you see it through his eyes or are you going to take the side of NBA Commissioner David Stern because you’re a fucking narc? Attire and appearance are meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but that’s what Rodman was criticized the most for during this timeframe. No one looked into his actual personality or truly cared for him until recently. He’s right. They just said he was crazy or on drugs. If he did kill himself in 1993, they would’ve said that about him. In his later years when he did start dying his hair and everything, they would’ve passed it off as the exact same thing. Rodman is completely right. He knows the perception the media and the public have for him, but now, he just doesn’t care to calm their suspicions because…well “Fuck ’em”. Why does he have to play damage control? He’s living his life the way he wants. Dennis Rodman should be celebrated for the courage this took to say enough is enough, especially at a time when the NBA was trying to control everyone to make the league look as good as possible.

Now, I’m not saying everything Rodman did on the court was justified because that’s not true, but he makes a lot of great points in explaining his actions. He doesn’t back down from anything. For example, he admits to hip-checking John Stockton when the Spurs faced the Utah Jazz in the NBA Playoffs in 1994, resulting in a one-game suspension and a $10,000 fine. Even so, he makes a great point in that Stockton was known as one of the dirtiest players in the league, and it was just sending a message from one “dirty” player to another. He argues that if you were to poll the NBA players themselves and asked who the dirtiest guard in the NBA is, they’d say Stockton, “but nobody outside the league would guess him”. It’s true. It might be common knowledge now amongst NBA fans because of the surge of podcasts and interviews done since, but this wasn’t as obvious to the casual fan in the 90s. Back then, “certain guys can do no wrong”. The NBA has a star system, and they protect the stars. This is well-known even today, and Rodman makes this very clear in his book by calling this out in what’s supposed to be an equal opportunity league. In a private meeting with Stern following the Stockton incident, Rodman told Stern that he didn’t do anything the other players wouldn’t do. He just did things out in the open for people to see, calling out Karl Malone for his penchant for swinging his elbows and how he’s never penalized for it, but as soon as Rodman does something, they jump on him right away. It’s the nature of the NBA, and Rodman refuses to pull punches on his rightful criticisms. As a basketball historian and purist, how can you disagree with him? There is a double standard. There always has been. David Stern’s insistence on cleaning up the league resulted in preferential treatment on certain players and a reason to go after others. Plus, the focus shifted to entertaining offense rather than rough defense that defined the late 80s and early 90s, which affected Rodman’s reputation unfairly because his actions were deemed okay just a few years prior and is now considered dirty.

In a great example of the league doing everything they can to protect their image, Rodman points out the fact that there was a co-Rookie of the Year in 1995, a rarity that has only happened three times in the history of the league, mostly because Jason Kidd had some legal trouble before the season started and Rodman thinks the league didn’t want him to win it outright. They had to put Grant Hill right there alongside him, as Rodman sees Hill as a player who fits the NBA’s family friendly image to a “T”. Look, I’m not doubting Grant Hill’s skill in those early years at all, but it’s no secret that he was anointed as the future of the NBA immediately because of how unproblematic and clean cut he was. Rodman has an argument here regardless of how good of a rookie year Hill had. The NBA has always made decisions based on entertainment compared to merit like making the All-Star Game in Utah and Stockton and Malone managing to win co-All-Star Game MVP in front of their home crowd. Is that a coincidence? Is it a coincidence that Rodman wasn’t chosen for the All-Star Game in 1996 when they went to San Antonio? You’re out of your mind if you think it was. Rodman is just done with the bullshit and is speaking his mind, and it’s refreshing, especially for this time period when people held back more often than not. Some people may call him a shit-stirrer like he is on the court, something he doesn’t deny because he admits to playing mind games and loving physical basketball, but he’s not just talking shit. He’s got reasons for everything and is pointing out to the novice fan what they might not have known because the media decided long ago that he would be the poster child “bad guy”. Once you have the reputation, you’re forever that guy. Though Rodman didn’t necessarily help matters much, the San Antonio Spurs did him no favors and piled things on when they knew they’d never get called out on it because Rodman already had the “nutcase” label. After learning how many times they screwed him, I can’t help but take Rodman’s side on his tenure with the Spurs.

Very rarely do you hear people bash Gregg Popovich, but this one is warranted. Rodman’s take on Popovich being the one who wanted to “tame” Rodman and make him a “good little soldier” does align with early Pop’s personality. When you couple this with how much power NBA front offices had compared to the players back then, the Spurs running a smear campaign on Rodman isn’t hard to believe. Don’t question Rodman’s love for the game. That is one thing you’ll take away from this book. Sure, he has a lot of fun outside of basketball, but he’d tell you himself, what he does outside the court isn’t anyone’s business but his. The fact that the Pistons hired a fucking private investigator to follow him outside of basketball activities is outrageous. There’s an invasion of privacy and people’s personal lives, but this is some next-level shit that needs to be brought to light more often from the David Stern era of the NBA. Rodman’s feelings of being a commodity or a “sports slave” for the NBA rather than a person are warranted with such actions taken against him like this. Actually, he humorously describes NBA players as prostitutes wearing jerseys and uniforms and he felt like the “best prostitute in a high-class whorehouse” before adding “All the other girls get paid more than I do”. This is why the Spurs organization and Pop himself lying to Rodman’s face about taking care of his contract situation, and then telling the media this never happened, 100% aligns with this era of corruption involved with the NBA and its unfairness towards its players. I’d flip the fuck out too. Rodman was only asking for a two-year deal for $15 million adding, “If I can bring you 50 million, why not give me 15 million?”. Considering what he did up to that point, the TV ratings when he played, and how he was proving to be the third biggest draw in the league behind Michael Jordan and Shaq, and he’s already a two-two champion when no one else on that Spurs team was, his desires are pretty fucking reasonable.

The fact that Chris Dudley was making more than him at the peak of his career is flat-out disrespectful.

This is how powerful the league was at that time. Painting Rodman as a crazy person made him uninsurable and they could always use this against him when he wanted a new contract, despite how much money he generated by his entertaining style of play and making the rebound an “art form”. As he says himself, “They didn’t have a problem with me being wild and crazy when it came to fill the arenas”, but when he asked to be compensated for such, he was meant with vague promises. When you think about it, the lying of Spurs management changed NBA history. According to Rodman, he only accepted the trade to the Spurs because they promised to take care of his contract demands once the season was over. He could have been sent elsewhere and changed the trajectory of any team’s title hopes in the two seasons following Jordan’s exit from the league. On top of that, we also learn of the fun fact that Rodman was set to be traded to the Phoenix Suns for Richard Dumas, but Dumas failed a drug test, which stopped things from going through. Can you imagine that Charles Barkley-led Suns team with Rodman? There’s no way they don’t win a championship. They could have realistically won back-to-back instead of the Rockets with Rodman there. That’s how complete that roster was even with Barkely’s injuries. Spurs fans may get mad at Rodman’s comments because Popovich can apparently do no wrong, but they need to read the facts in Bad as I Wanna Be. The Spurs were the one’s all excited to meet Madonna when she was dating Rodman and came to their game. Coach John Lucas and all the players were the ones who wanted to take pictures with her and make a big deal about it. Rodman never asked for the attention. In fact, he was annoyed by it. Then, when Madonna showed up for a playoff game because they were still dating, Rodman was blamed for the “distraction”. That is bullshit. They had no problem with it before, made it a big deal without Rodman chiming in, then blamed him for when they lost because of her presence?

Are you not seeing the double standard that Rodman is talking about?

He got shit from the team and the media for taking off his shoes when he was on the bench during the playoffs, but it’s something he did all the time during the regular season because his feet hurt. During the season, no one said a fucking thing! When they lost in the playoffs though, they just added this to the laundry list of distracting things Rodman did. Once again, the point goes to Rodman here. If all this stuff rattled the Spurs this much, maybe Rodman was right. That roster was not ready for a title run. At most, I’ll concede not being in the huddle was something Rodman should have thought about. Though he’s probably right in that he already knew the gameplan and most players don’t listen in the huddle anyway, he should have done it for their benefit considering the spotlight he was under during that time period. Though again, I do genuinely agree with him. It’s just that the smoke and mirrors are a part of the game, so everyone on the team feels like a cohesive unit. Nevertheless, they again painted Rodman as the bad guy for having a tendency to miss practice. He only missed ONE because he was sick, yet the Spurs and media made it sound like he was this unpredictable wildcard who no one knew if he was going to show up or not. If he was late, it would be by minutes, but it was only because he was listening to Pearl Jam in the parking lot. Is anyone else seeing how much of this was overblown by the public? Again, he’s not completely innocent from any wrongdoing, but the Spurs did go out of their way to make him look like an asshole. The evidence is right there. Even when the Bulls did their cross-examination of him before they brought him on, they agreed with Rodman and saw what the Spurs did. It’s all there in the final section of the book. All Rodman wanted was a two-year deal. He didn’t ask to stay in San Antonio with a long-term contract that would keep him there for the rest of his career. He just wanted to be paid to match his output, as does anyone.

Despite him being the “distraction” they said he was, Rodman was still a big contributor in helping them get to the Western Conference Finals. Then, when he asked about his contract after this season, they told him they didn’t have any money left after paying David Robinson and Sean Elliott, two offensive stars who both got lit up by Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler respectively. Rodman’s takes on this season in particular and his unapologetic honesty on former MVP Robinson had to have been the biggest highlight of the book next to the Madonna chapter. It really gave us an insight on Robinson as a person and a player, with rightful criticism hurled towards the big man from Rodman for his tendency to not show up in big games. Rodman’s perspective is correct. When you’re the MVP of the league, you should be a leader. You should man-up and say, “I got this” when guarding someone like Olajuwon, knowing he’s killing them. He didn’t have to shut Olajuwon down in that series. All he had to do was limit him and not let him run amok. Unfortunately, Robinson got torched. It’s well documented. People blame Rodman for this series too, but if you’re the MVP, you have to play better. It’s as simple as that. Little Avery Johnson himself stood up and trashed Robinson in front of everyone in the locker room for his performance, but it never got out of the locker room. The media has NEVER brought this up. The team knew Robinson was fucking up, but no one blamed him when they lost the series. They all blamed Rodman and piled on even more when he got traded (Shout out Chuck Person). All those players asked for Rodman’s advice during the season, but no one stood up for him once he was traded. The Spurs organization and the media only brought up Rodman’s refusal to help, so Rodman responded by bringing up the facts. Robinson just didn’t have that dog in him like Olajuwon. Robinson was never confident in his own abilities to stop him, with him straight-up telling his teammates that they can help if they want.

In retrospect, Rodman getting the blame for this series is totally unfair. If you know the game of basketball and the rosters at that time, Rodman’s insight into this series, and his defensive observations, are spot on. Phil Jackson even agreed with Rodman’s argument on Bob Hill’s defensive schemes. You can’t double Hakeem because it leaves the shooters open. Robinson has to step up and face Olajuwon one-on-one. It’s the only way for the others to stop the roll players. Let Olajuwon get his, but the other Spurs players can stop the rest of them. On top of that, Rodman admits to refusing to guard Olajuwon, but his reasoning his completely sound. He wasn’t afraid of anything. He just points out that it’s idiotic for your best defensive player to waste his energy and fouls on the opposing team’s best offensive player in the first half of the game because he has a chance of picking up too many fouls before the game is on the line. In doing so, he won’t be as effective because he’d be forced to be less aggressively when they need it. You have him guard Olajuwon in the second half, he would have been fine, but Coach Hill didn’t want to do this. Call Rodman crazy all you want, but he’s correct. Who are we to argue defense with Dennis fucking Rodman anyway? When he explained this all to Hill and they changed things up, they won two straight games. Inexplicably, they changed things back to Hill’s defensive scheme after these two games and they lost the series. Why Hill did this is beyond me. Rodman doesn’t know either but considering how the Spurs were already pissed off with his outbursts, you can’t help but think it was an egocentric decision from Popovich and others in the organization since Pop was pulling the strings behind everything Hill was doing anyway. The worst part about this is that his two-year stint in San Antionio affected Rodman’s earnings for the rest of his career. That’s how good of a job they did in ruining his name, with no other person taking a single other thing into context as to why things happened the way they did.

The Madonna chapter was a great tell-all explanation of their short but eventful relationship. Not only do you get a good idea of Rodman’s headspace at the time, but you also learn a lot about the real Madonna behind closed doors. As strange as it may seem, there was some real love between the two, but Rodman never committed to it for two reasons. He (1) didn’t want to be minimized by Madonna’s popularity and be her “boy toy” of sorts in the media’s eyes, and he (2) just wasn’t ready to settle down on his party lifestyle. Even so, he does go on and on about her, and it’s cool to learn so much about this celebrity relationship that got so much coverage back then, despite it being relatively short, all things considered. It was no publicity stunt, Madonna really liked Rodman’s style. You knew it was love when she went out of her way to fly to Utah to watch Rodman play. It was more or less bad timing as to why it didn’t work out. Going along with this, it’s crazy to hear Rodman admit that she never wanted him to wear a condom too. She seemed desperate for a kid with him, even faxing him at one point that she wanted every drop of his cum inside her. Yes, she faxed this. Things like this could be just chalked up as a relationship still on its honeymoon phase, but there is a serious level of entertainment to it when the reality is that Madonna of all people is saying this to Dennis Rodman of all people. It’s the life of a celebrity. Them doing regular person activities or saying things you and your friends may talk about is just so interesting. You can’t really explain it. It can be as small as Rodman talking about masturbation and referring to his right hand as “Judy” and his left hand as “Monique”. One thing Rodman does make clear is that he’s not into kinky stuff, which was wild to me. He admits he gives off the appearance of someone who would, which is why he’s propositioned by so many people across the country all the time. A few times he was even asked to fuck some guy’s wife while the husband watches. He’s not into weird shit like that, which genuinely surprised me as funny as that may sound.

With sex in general, Rodman’s trust issues are still very apparent. He has his fun, but he’s still not uncomfortable, noting how there’s a network of women who try to trap NBA players into sex or marriage to try to get money out of them. It was present before the social media era during his time, and it’s present now. NBA fans and podcasters are very aware of all the Instagram models out there today. Back in the 90s though, it was a huge problem, which is why Rodman tried to stay away from the regular spots players would hang out at. The women in question would hang out there specifically with these intentions. Even so, he still found himself in trouble, with the Atlanta Hawks cheerleader suing him for $1.5 million for giving her herpes that he doesn’t have. He beat her lying ass in court but still had to pay $225,000 in lawyers’ fees, so he still lost in a way. Such is the life of a big-time athlete, and you can see why it would take a toll on someone like Rodman. He can’t trust anyone, so he shut everyone out. It’s understandable. He even says himself that he always thinks women are trying to get something from him when he interacts with them. In addition, he doubles down on the famous “I’m not a role model” quote from Charles Barkley. Athletes don’t have the answer for everything. They shouldn’t have to be looked at like heroes and role models if they don’t want to. They didn’t sign up for something like that. They just play sports. This is something that needs to be talked about a lot more. Maybe Rodman being the spokesperson for such an argument hurts it, but he’s right. It’s unfair to make someone who plays a game this role model and leader that the country can look up to. At the same time, it doesn’t make him a bad person either, talking about how he doesn’t publicize himself giving homeless people money and whatever else as opposed to other players setting up foundations for their image.

You could also point fingers back at David Stern for this because of his forcing of the “family friendly” image. In a way, it forces the athletes to match this and be a role model by proxy, but Stern doesn’t even take into account that this has NOTHING to do with the game of basketball and shouldn’t be a requirement to stay in the league. It may not be officially, but with the way guys like Rodman are treated, it sort of is. The NBA marketed the Pistons as the “Bad Boys” when it was popular, but once they decided this doesn’t agree with what they wanted the league to be, they demonized them and made their tactics illegal overnight. With Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer retired, this negative aura around this style was attributed directly to Rodman and they would fuck with him nonstop. Since they still couldn’t control him or his individual image, they doubled down and made him look like a black mark on the league. It may sound like a conspiracy, but it’s hard not to see it from this perspective when you really analyze the situation, especially with how hard Stern’s NBA started to crack down on technicals and angry players reacting emotionally, a big part about what fuels a defensive player like Dennis Rodman. Rodman asks, “What are you afraid of? That somebody might show they care about this game?”. The life-or-death mantra about basketball that Rodman and the Pistons had is being taken away. The emotion and teamwork is being taken out of the NBA. In its place is the new focus on dunks and flashy play, not the game of basketball. As a result, the NBA has a lot less well-rounded players, just like Rodman notes. It’s even worse now, but its origins can be traced to back then. Even though the NBA grew as a brand because of its newfound focus on being family entertainment, it’s all bullshit. It should be about the game of basketball, and I’ll always agree with Rodman here.

“The game is enough. This is a great game”.

Somewhere along the line, the NBA lost the plot, and Rodman is calling it like he sees it. This is why Bad as I Wanna Be is so important to NBA fans as a whole, along with fans of Rodman himself.

Besides this, Rodman has a great sense of humor throughout, and he talks about his legendary exploits with his typical nonchalant attitude. Telling Madonna “No” when she wanted him to eat her out is iconic because you have to assume no one has said “No” to a prime Madonna, and Rodman taking his girlfriend Kim to Las Vegas while he was dating Madonna is even more legendary. In an even funnier moment, he’s essentially caught but goes back to Los Angeles with Madonna and leaves Kim in Vegas! That’s hilarious, as was his recalling of his playoff scuffle with Karl Malone and throwing in “I still don’t think I touched him”. There’s also his amusing idea of playing his last game in the NBA and going completely nude as he walks off the court, an idea surely stolen by 2002’s Juwanna Mann.

Rodman also amazes as he talks about his approach to rebounding and defense, describing in detail his visualization tactics. Watching tape on his opponents, he trained his mind to imagine guarding and stopping them. He would do it incessantly. In regard to rebounding, he’s not worried about positioning, strangely enough. Through years of practice, he just reads where the ball goes off the rim, jumps quicker (not higher), times his jumps, and is relentless at keeping at it. It just has to be inside you, and this effort is inside Rodman like no one else. Before games, he would put his mind in horrible places to get mentally ready for the war on the court and would even tell himself little things like if he doesn’t get this rebound, he’s going back to the streets. It would make him work harder than everyone else and it would give him a psychological edge that very few have. It’s engrossing to read his process because of its uniqueness. Little details like this can make the difference between a star and a superstar. As a basketball fan, it’s so admirable how serious he took his job as a rebounder. His goal was to “do for rebounds what Michael did for dunks”. For that timeframe, I like to think he did.

At the very least, he made hair dye cool, so there’s that.

Dennis Rodman’s Bad as I Wanna Be is everything you want it to be. Fresh into his peak as one of the most famous men in America, Rodman speaks his mind and isn’t afraid of the consequences at all. He calls out the legacy of David Robinson, destroys David Stern for what seems like personal targeting, dismantles the Spurs organization, and touches on every taboo subject he knows would get a rise out of people in the 90s such as AIDS, suicide, trauma, race relations in sports, the double standards of athletes and entertainers, and what is considered conduct unbecoming. Some of the content is a little redundant, and some points aren’t nearly as controversial in hindsight compared to how it may have been perceived in the 90s, but it’s honest and it’s all Rodman. It looks like Phil Jackson and the Chicago Bulls came at just the right time. Dennis Rodman may not be perfect, but he never claimed to be. He just wants someone to understand him for who he is. With Bad as I Wanna Be, I think we finally do.