The NBA's one-game suspension and fine of San Antonio's Dennis Rodman can only be attributed to one thing: Videotape.
After two games of the Jazz-Spurs series a distinctive pattern clearly emerged from the films they reviewed in New York. Every time it looked like the series was going to settle down into something basic, like, say, regular basketball, there was this fellow with yellow hair who did something irregular.Name a disruption, any disruption, and Dennis (The Menace) Rodman was in the middle of it. His prints were everywhere. They left a wild card in the deck and it was him. He was so uncanny he was canny. In just two games he'd already started more fights than free drinks. The only thing they haven't figured out yet is how he started the fight between the Hawks and the Heat last Saturday, since he was roughly 1,000 miles away at the time. He must have been involved, they're just not sure how.
Dennis Rodman makes Rick Barry look serene. He's as popular as people who repossess cars. So far he's averaged one flagrant foul per game in the playoffs, which is one more than Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan averaged per career. He's averaging an ejection every other game. He's a one-man restraining order. If Tonya Harding had been him she wouldn't have needed the other guys.
The only thing predictable is his unpredictability. He got one of his flagrant fouls when the Spurs were leading by 26. He intentionally threw a free throw hard at the rim, trying for a rebound, when the Spurs were leading by 13. In the closing moments of the Spurs' first victory he celebrated by slapping his own coach. His own teammates were saying, "Huh!"
Not surprisingly, he has increasingly gotten under the skin of the Jazz players. They know how Mr. Wilson felt. Already two Jazz players and one coach - about a fifth of the squad - have had to leave the series directly or indirectly due to Rodman. Tom Chambers was ejected from game two for a not-unprovoked attack on Rodman and Jerry Sloan was ejected from game one after watching a number of annoying incidents, most of them starring Rodman. John Stockton had to leave game two wearing an ice bag and a wrap after Rodman intentionally kneed him in the thigh.
Shortly before taking out Stockton, Rodman, going for a Dream Team double, also went after Karl Malone's jaw. Malone took the punch, physically and mentally. Afterward he said, "My daughter hits harder than that."
He didn't specify which daughter. But - and you can accept this as fact - neither Kadee Lyn, close to three, or Kylee Ann, almost one, has ever bought weight-gaining powder, tattooed their biceps, or sent away for Soloflex brochures.
John Lucas, Rodman's coach, predictably says Dennis isn't that much worse than anyone else, it's just that his rather unorthodox style calls so much attention to itself that whenever Rodman raises an eyebrow or changes his hair tint, the referees call for the tear gas and the league calls for the video tapes.
Lucas does have a point. The yellow hair, the tattoos, the navel ring, the pajamas he wears to practice, the will-call tickets for Madonna, the fact that he can't shoot a jumpshot . . . they do tend to turn Rodman into the basketball equivalent of a red Corvette driving through Boone County. A marked man. A foul waiting to be called. A suspension simmering.
But, still, anyone in the NBA knows that it takes more than accessories and a weird haircut to get John Stockton to lose his composure, which is what happened, briefly, after Rodman kneed the Jazz guard in game two.
His leg braced into an "L" on the sidelines, Stockton, who wouldn't yell at the IRS if they audited his agent, couldn't resist yelling at Rodman as he ran past him on the playing floor. Afterward, Stockton wished he hadn't done that - even if Rodman was thrown out of the game for answering back. "It never feels good to go out of character," Stockton said. "That's not my style."
But that is Rodman's style and it isn't new to these playoffs. It's been six years now since the Rodman Way made its national playoff debut in the Eastern Conference finals of 1988. That's when the Detroit Pistons, for whom Rodman then played, faced Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics. It was Rodman, a second year pro, who chose that occasion to declare, "If Larry Bird were black he'd be just another player." In the aftermath it was Isiah Thomas, the Pistons' star, who wound up going on national TV to try to apologize and explain what he and Dennis meant. Isiah is still wondering about that one.
Times change but they don't change much. Rodman's teammates are still trying to explain what he means and his opponents are still trying to figure out what it all means. And Rodman, he's still the straw that stirs up the drink. In these playoffs, he's stirred early and he's stirred often, even by his standards. If he hadn't been so disruptive in games one and two he'd be just another player tonight in game three. But he was, and he won't be.