This text contains excerpts from the third episode of 'The Last Dance ', the ESPN and Netflix documentary on Michael Jordan's basketball career , especially from that last year at the Chicago Bulls , the 1997-1998 academic year.

Dennis Rodman is unique. It has been unique. Both on and off the track.

The third chapter of 'The Last Dance' delves a little into the personality of the former Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls center , teams that, with him on the roster, won the NBA title. Teams that hated each other, that shared some of the best heats in the history of the league and that still show that great 'affection' between them today: " I hated them , and I still hate them today," explained Michael Jordan.

To those Pistons, the 'Bad Boys', came a Dennis Rodman of already 25 years (something unthinkable today) in the mid-80s. A 'normal ' rookie , in jeans and sneakers, without tattoos, without piercings , without an extravagant hairstyle. As a child he was bullied , he did not have his father and at 18 his mother kicked him out of the house because he did nothing with his life or got money. He lived "how could he," he admits on the show. "My mother was driving school buses and she got tired of me. I spent two years on the street, stumbling, sleeping where I could, in my friends' garden ... Anywhere. I could have been a trafficker, but no, I only saw those who They were. He could have ended up in prison or died ... But I went to the gym and I started to like basketball, "he summarizes.

Rodman was a perfect match for the Bad Boys . A player with a supernatural talent for defense and rebounding, who gave energy and strength to an already physically invincible team. So they beat Jordan during the rings they got. "It was the Jordan Rules , if Michael took the bottom line, we would throw him to the ground. We would hit him, " he summarizes. "That team was like a hockey team, people wanted to see us fight." In the documentary, there is a 'basketball' moment in which Rodman explains how his reaction to rebounds improved, how he knew where the balls missed by Jordan or Bird could fall, and how he trained until late at night in the gym. to increase their ability to react to the mistakes of their peers and rivals.

After several successful years, Chuck Daly , his protector and "father" in Detroit, left the Pistons and Rodman began his "life" off the track . In February 1993, after being unaccounted for, he was found asleep in a car with a rifle . He was going through a serious emotional crisis and was about to commit suicide, according to his book 'Bad as I Wanna Be'. The Pistons decided to transfer him to the San Antonio Spurs and there was born a 'new Dennis'. He started dating Madonna , who came to offer her $ 20 million to get her pregnant, starred in ' Demolition Man ', dyed her hair, put on rings and piercings ... She started "being free", as he himself recognized in the television programs of that time. "They don't know Dennis. They write stupid things to make me look like an idiot, " he said.

In San Antonio things were not quite right and the leadership of the Jordan Bulls, which he had won with the Pistons, decided that it was the missing piece to have a perfect team and they believed that Phil Jackson would be like Daly for Rodman, someone capable of 'taming' him. They thought that the fans would not receive him very well, but in the squad "he fit like a glove", admits Pippen. "He is one of the smartest players I've ever played with," says Jordan.

He won two rings before the 'Last Dance', course in which he requested a mid-season vacation when Pippen returned from his inactivity . "He said he needed a vacation. I looked at Phil and said, 'But what is he saying? If anyone needs a fucking vacation, it's me,'" Jordan says. Jackson, in a decision that would sound like a joke today, allowed him 48 hours "free" to go to Las Vegas . "It worked," Steve Kerr now confirms, although at that time even Jordan himself had to report to his hotel room to return to Chicago ... forcing actress Carmen Electra to hide behind the bed.

After the Bulls

After Chicago he played in the Lakers, taking advantage of all the life that Los Angeles could offer him and laying the foundations of a hectic life after basketball: he has appeared in 29 productions of film or television, some of dubious quality and recognition; He fought the Hulk Hogan in the WWF, has slept with, according to him, more than 2,000 women ... And even had time to befriend the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, even offering to mediate between the leader of the Asian country and the President of the United States Donald Trump.

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