There are a lot of things you can say about Dennis Rodman. Flake? Sure. Odd? Okay. Needs a lot of attention? No doubt.
But you also have to say these things: wicked smart. Relentless. And fearless.
Sometimes you could get all those things at once, or combinations thereof anyway.
For all his odd behavior, Rodman was never scared of anyone and never backed down. He was able to defend the much bigger Shaquille O’ Neal (7-1/325). And he wasn’t scared to take on the even bigger Gheorghe Mureșan.
Mureșan had an average NBA career at best, but he suffers from a pituitary gland disorder called agromegaly and grew to 7-7.
Didn’t matter to Rodman. He went right at Mureșan, and while Mureșan, who was more than a foot taller, presented some intractable problems, Rodman spends a lot of time just aggravating the hell out of him.
It works too.
The announcer - we think it’s Hubie Brown - urges him to just play the game, but Rodman is playing a different game. He gets under Mureșan’s skin and makes him focus on Chicago’s provocateur rather than the game.
Rodman’s strange behavior takes attention away from his legitimate claim to greatness, which is too bad. He was a spectacular basketball player.
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