Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 at 2:43 pm  |  53 responses

Dennis Rodman: I Never Had a Conversation With MJ or Pippen in Chicago


Much as we’d like to believe Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman spent hours upon hours being the best of friends off the court while they were busting heads on it during the mid-to-late-90s, it appears that’s far from the truth. Rodman recently sat down with Graham Besinger, and during their conversation, the former power forward spoke of the relationship he had with MJ and Pip. Via PBT: “HESINGER: Your then teammate when you were with the Bulls, Scottie Pippen, was quoted as saying “I’ve never had a conversation with Dennis. I’ve never had a conversation with Dennis in my life, so I don’t think it’s anything new.” Why not speak to your teammates then? RODMAN: Well, I think it was important for me to go in there and win. I don’t have a job to speak to people. My job is to collate and understand how people work and make people believe in the fact that [I] belong there. Talking to people will come. Relating to people will come. If they see you performing and doing your job and being with the group, that’s all I want. Me and Scottie — we’re cool today. We’re a little older, a little wiser. We’re cool today. And me and Scottie never had a conversation. Me and Scottie and Michael never had a conversation in three years in Chicago. Only time we had a conversation was on the court, and that was it.”

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  • http://slamonline.com Bryan Crawford

    This should surprise absolutely no one.

  • KSupreme22

    Looks like in order for Miami to win…Chris Bosh must stop speaking to Lebron and D-Wade.

  • http://www.twitter.com/xpotatotitsx mersh

    ya i’m definitely not surprised but this seems like one of those things that should stick between the players. i miss the days when everything stayed on the court and in the locker room. too many players and ex-players opening their mouths about interworkings or franchises. shaq is currently the worst at this and needs to keep his old mouth shut. he’s quickly dropping from one of my all time favorites to just another guy that wants to sell books.

  • bike

    I’ll bet Jordan and Pippen had plenty of private conversations about Rodman. Freakin’ wacko.

  • http://slamonline BossTerry

    I can see it too.. I’ve worked with guys for 5+ years, and have never spoken to them besides a “hello” here and there.. Cosign bike, kinda.. Its just a difference in personalities and life styles..

  • Nella

    Seriously – this should surprise no one for multiple reasons. 1. Rodman being a HATED member of the Bad Boys, especially by Pip. 2. Dennis being Dennis. 3. That last 3-peat was all business for them on the court. They whupped ass and had fun doing it, but it was all business. Also, it may run contrary to guys being all BFF’s today, but there’s a difference between being teammates, and friends.

  • http://slamonline.com The Philosopher

    I mean, what in the living hell would those guys be talking about??
    Rodman was in his own universe.
    He’s still in his own universe.
    Notice that Rodman never pulled any jazz on Lord Thomas III’s watch?
    Only when Isiah was out of the picture was when Rodman discovered his universe.
    Anyways…

  • robb

    nothing new

  • http://j.mp/r3xvbr Allenp

    Sometimes Philo cracks me up.
    Lord Isiah Thomas suckers

  • gdot

    Kobe and Rodman never spoke off the court either. Take that MJ! (I’m just kidding guys)

  • http://www.kb24.com The Seed

    All you guys acting like MJ was such a great leader and he always held the team together is crap. How can those bulls of the big 3 never talk. I blame MJ since he is the greatest leader ever to people. Its alot of stories like this about the so called leader MJ, where he really wasn’t what people act like he is, he messed up in alot of games, froze teammates out, made Scottie want to leave at one time, push Grant away and really if you look at his life, HIS kids probably hate him or despise him and his ex wife dealt with him for the fat paycheck. MJ was great at basketball but thats its, he sucks as a GM and I rather have Zeke running my team, at least he can draft well. BOOK IT!!

  • http://slamonline.com The Philosopher

    The Seed:
    You really think that Jordan’s kids “hate” him?
    They may harbor A LITTLE resentment, and, even THAT is arguable.
    For, we do not generally hear about Jordan’s kids being in any kind of major trouble. They don’t publicly express disdain for him, as opposed to Isiah’s brood. (his son)
    They had, and have a pretty comfortable life, no? I’m guessing that they realize that.
    I don’t know…

  • http://www.kb24.com The Seed

    The Philosopher
    Having fun at MJ expense, but just trying to crack MJ is the best leader ever crap. Dude had game, but his leadership skills were always in question to me. I grew up watching him, shoot out games, get ripped, mess team up get ripped, gamble before games, get ripped, run teammates away get ripped, pucnh temmates get ripped and now people act like MJ never did anything wrong, he shot his team out of plenty of games, I watched them, froze out teammates, his teammates hated him–articles I read, but they respected him, and alot. I am tired of the MJ worship when compared to players now. Like MJ was all world DEFENSE, HE HAD SCOTTIE PIPPEN. I heard about this a while back, this shows MJ was not a true leader like people now try to make him out to be. BOOK IT!!

  • MikeC.

    I think Rodman was implying that they didn’t socialize or discuss anything that wasn’t related to professional basketball. I’m sure they had lockerroom convos about who should switch and when, and where help D needed to come from, etc. They just weren’t sitting in a circle gabbing about Twilight.

  • http://Slamonline.com Mars

    cool-blooded

  • http://slamonline.com The Philosopher

    The Seed:
    You make some valid points, which lead me to this conclusion, a la JTaylor21;
    Some people lead differently than others.
    But again, you’ve made some points that a many a people have forgotten about when it comes to… Jeffrey.

  • http://slamonline.com The Philosopher

    *In my judgement*

  • Allenp

    Jordan was all world defense early in his career and he could turn it on even later.

  • rainman10

    @The Seed.
    MJ wasn’t all world defense? And you say you watched a lot of his games growing up? MJ played for a while with a team in Chicago before he was a Wizard. And in Chicago he was named the defensive player of the year. Ya Pippen was his teammate. But a rookie who didn’t play big minutes I believe.

  • slamfan4life

    …….bologna………….yeah i said it….idk if i spelled it right though..

  • Yesse

    Not a surprise to me. Many championship teams have had bad chemistry. Kobe and Shaq were not getting along at all for example.

  • Ryan

    I’m with Seed MJJ has been blown up into a god when in point of fact he was a hugely talented ego maniac with a “competition problem” (according to his Pops) and now everyone acts like he was an all American hero… it’s pathetic.

    As a Piston’s fan it always made me equally proud and sick to see Dennis Rodman’s work as the cornerstone of three titles in Chicago.

  • http://slamonline.com Ugh

    @The Seed – Your premises are strange and unsound, sir.

  • Justin

    @The Seed…Don’t you get tired of posting the most ridiculous crap ever written on this site? Why is it that when Pippen and Rodman went into the Hall of Fame, they both said Michael was the greatest teammate they’d ever had? Why is it that bench players like Steve Kerr (one of the people MJ smacked in the face during training camp) have also said MJ was a great leader in practice, driving all of them to be better players? I officially stop reading your idiotic comments after saying Michael wasn’t all world defense? Who cares if he had Scottie Pippen on his team? What does that even mean? Scottie wasn’t coming to help any of the people MJ was guarding and shutting down night after night. Most of the time if players are complaining about how they’re being treated it’s because they’re screwing up and can’t handle it. Whiny little b!tches that they are. And btw, I don’t think anyone was saying MJ was the greatest leader ever, not with guys like Magic Johnson around anyway. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t a great leader in his own way though.

  • http://www.slamonline.com UNFROZEN CAVEMAN LAWYER

    WHO IS JORDAN?

  • Red Star

    This is news? LMAO!

  • AD

    cosign seed… ima tired of the MJ Worship .. he was a great player but a terrible teamate…. some ppl say he was a bad person… all he cared about was his money….. @ Justin…. ppl dnt tell the truth on T.V Teamates say that so everyone can look happy and make the masses belive everything is all good but its the opposite…….. If they were such good teamates… why would scottie make that comment about lebron and jordan?

  • MikeC.

    @AD – you don’t win 6 championships if all you care about is money. Egomaniac? Probably. Overly-competitive? Certainly. Dickish? Yep. Philanderer? Affirmative. You can say a lot of negative things about Jordan, but the positives (as far as bball is concerned) vastly outweigh the negatives.

  • Dreamteamxxx

    Shut the fxxk up, mj is the greatest leader of all time

  • http://stapledesign.com Spaceship Jay

    Seed; Perhaps knowing how crazy and volatile a teammate is and knowing when and where there is an oppurtune time to address him can be seen as… leadership. Chess > Checkers.

  • http://www.optimabbc.be Max

    MJ = GOAT and we’ll leave it at that.

  • daveh

    Does anybody in their right mind think that Rodman didn’t take steroids during his playing days?

  • DENNIS V

    There is no way that Dennis Rodman took steroids.He would get drunk as a skunk,smoke cigars,pick up women,spend a lot of money.But then in the morning he would go work out like crazy even though he was hungover.And then have his nails painted.I HAVE SEEN IT MANY TIMES.He didn’t even like talking about basketball-it was just something that he was really good at.I bet that he has the best plus/minus percantage in the NBA of all time,if they had kept that stat back then.Played on the great Piston’s teams then really good Spurs teams for 2 years then even greater Bulls teams.

  • http://SLAM Just Passing

    I just happened to be surfing the web. I find it ironic that we can go from talking about Dennis Rodman to delving into personal lives and/or opinions of “other” players. Getting back on track; I had the privilege of seeing Dennis Rodman on several occasions while in San Antonio, Texas. It does not surprise me that he did not hold personal conversations with other players. While in San Antonio, I saw the “man” go to work, do his job “well”, and “always” respect and greet the fans. While other more notable players “never” greeted fans. This showed me that the man was about doing his job and doing it well; with the understanding that if it were not for the fans most of this would not be possible! I fell he is a great man, not a wacko. If most people would exhibited those type work ethics this world would be a much better place. I do not know the man personally, so I find it hard to comment about his off the court behavior! Is/was it entertainment, a way to earn more money, soul searching…..?

  • http://SLAM Just Passing

    “feel” not “fell”. Sorry!

  • wall Ball

    Name one player any of you would take on the greatest list ahead of Mike if you had the first pick to start a team?

  • damiantx

    bill russell.

  • Wikked01

    Ok MJ was a gr8 player but an asshole he DID make his players better He Did demand you to play hard and He DID win. Not the gr8est leader mabye a dictator. But that works for some people. MJ took a PAYCUT to get his backround singers and help mold them into TEX’s image. I think MJ is the 2nd gr8st player ever to play !!! Bill Russell was a true leader and he did it in a hostile racial era. Take that MJ imagine your the best player in the universe and you cant stay are the same hotels or drink from the same water fountain as your white teammates?? As fro Dennis he was the all time best role player in the history of the NBA he did the dirty work and got nome of the accolades a lot like Ron Artest who has taken the gontlet from Rodman (with out the dress). Both will never be totally apprieciated!!!

  • Lenny

    Rodman is arguably the 2nd best rebounder of all time, with the BEST being Bill Russell (again).

  • golakeshow

    Dennis Rodman is the stupidest badass ever

  • golakeshow

    PS. Bill Russell is a lesbian

  • Gman

    You dont have to be best friends with people to be a leader. His leadership skills were on the court, the end.

  • Mooney10

    I don’t care about persona as much as results. It is easy to make comments about a man who is apparently “great” and then shoot him down in spite of all he has accomplished. You look at any sports franchise and the “greatest” is more often than not hated than adored by people around him because of their own perosnal drive to succeed, that doesn’t give anyone a right to knock down what he strived to achieve, we don’t know the details, so why try to conjure up some type negativity out of his career which is well over. People are competitive and the best clash that is how it goes. MJ is still by far the best to ever play in the NBA. Stats don’t lie and neither do rings or MVP’s or finals MVP’s or denfensive player of the year or 10 time scoring champ. Leave the man alone, the past is done! Wanna chirp his ownership do it!! The fact remains he as a player cannot be touched!

  • Spades

    Isiah Thomas is probably the only basketball player to defeat Magic, Bird and Jordan multiple times. People often forget how good the guy was as a player because of his terrible management stints.

  • http://twitter.com/PLYnWINnLAUF cJ

    Maybe they’d talk if Rodman wasn’t with the Pistons prior… I wasn’t alive back here (even though I watch lots of clips and reruns) so I’ve got an excuse, but how did Dennis even end up in Chicago?! I highly doubt these teams traded because of the bad blood. These were the days when there were genuine rivalries, not rivalries where the opponents are buddies. I wish I could’ve seen. On youtube these guys look amazing together so I really don’t care.

  • TC

    This really shouldn’t be a surprise. MJ, Scottie and Dennis were all about workin’ on the court. They didn’t have to be friends.

  • http://minusthebars.blogspot.com don

    What would they have to discuss?

  • Anthony Jay

    @Don “Hey Worm, we loved that dress!” hahahaha

  • http://djchriscruz.com Chris Cruz

    It seems like none of them speak to each other at all. Periodically the 80′s Celtics and Showtime Lakers come to together to reminisce and celebrate the good ol days. Maybe it’s too soon but we have yet to see a 90′s bulls reunion. Post retirement MJ is never seems to associate himself with any other players except for Charles Oakley and sometimes Charles Barkley.

  • sinjun

    that bulls team would of beaten any team at their prime!

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