Over the past decade and a half, we’ve seen just about every side of Dennis Rodman. The young, hard-working rebounder, the multi-colored weird guy, the hot-tempered cameraman-kicker, the five-time champion, the wedding dress wearer, the professional wrestler, and so on and so forth.
At his Hall of Fame induction on Friday night, though, we saw a new side: Sensitive, emotional Rodman.
The former Piston, Spur, Laker and Maverick wore — as expected — a wild and crazy outfit, as he looked more suited to jump aboard a ship and engage in a sword fight than he did make a speech in front of a bunch of folks wearing suits. Despite the bedazzled suit coat and dangling cuffs, Rodman said that his years of coloring his hair and wearing outrageous outfit was just an “illusion.”
“I didn’t play the game for the money, I didn’t play the game to be famous,” Rodman said. “What you see here is more just an illusion that I love to just be an individual that’s very colorful.”
Rodman also opened up about how important basketball has been for him.
“I coud’ve been dead,” he said. “I could’ve been a drug dealer. I could’ve been homeless — I was homeless. A lot of you guys that are in here in the Hall of Fame know what it’s like to be in the projects and trying to get out the projects. And I did that. But it took a lot of bumps along the road.”
Photo of the day
Have your opinions of Dennis Rodman changed since his days as an NBA bad boy?
Quote of the day
“People want to see Tiger Woods. People want to see Phil Mickelson. But there’s other guys who can really, really play golf out here and that are really good that you’ve never heard of.”
–Jason Dufner, to ESPN.com, trying to convince people that they should be interested in watching him play golf this weekend
Tweet of the day
When the Red Sox are on the West Coast, it takes dedication from the fans to stay up late.
Video of the day
This was the best thing that happened during Tiger Woods‘ round on Friday.
