TV Quote of the Day (Carmen Electra, on Dating Dennis Rodman)

“It was definitely an occupational hazard to be Dennis's girlfriend.”—Celebrity Carmen Electra, on her time dating Chicago Bulls power forward Dennis Rodman, featured in the ESPN documentary The Last Dance, Episode 4, original air date Apr. 26, 2020

When it comes to depicting Michael Jordan and the group he famously called “my supporting cast” are concerned, only one writer could depict them in all their complexity: William Shakespeare. And The Bard would have to look beyond the conventional tragedies and comedies he is generally known for, to the “problem plays” of his late period.

The Tempest comes to mind in thinking of the storms threatening to capsize the Chicago Bulls in their 1997-98 season. Jordan is easy to imagine as Prospero, a ruler brimming with old hurts and resentments, who dominates his carefully preserved realm against outside usurpers through an iron will and magical abilities.

But Shakespeare would have to fashion the rudiments of Dennis Rodman from another character: Falstaff, another lord of misrule and virtual law unto himself. Rodman might be more notable for length than girth, but he was as bent on revelry as Prince Hal’s roguish pal, his immense skills leading coach Phil Jackson and the team to barely tolerate his antics. 

I missed the first 2½ hours of The Last Dance, but came in on what may well end up being the comic highlight of the series: Dennis Rodman’s “vacation” in Las Vegas, in the middle of the last season of their legendary championship run, taken when the forward could no longer take being “a model citizen” for the team while Scottie Pippen recuperated from a lengthy injury.

The 48 hours allotted by Jackson to Rodman went longer, as Jordan had correctly predicted. So it fell to His Airness to drag Rodman out of the Sin City hotel room where he was holed up with Ms. Electra. 

Jordan’s comments on what he discovered are hilarious: “We had to go get his ass out of bed. And I'm not gonna say what's in his bed, or where he was, or blah blah blah." But Ms. Electra—perhaps better known for her visual appeal than for her way with words—was, in the quote above, masterfully succinct.

Yeah, I know—there are six more hours to go in The Last Dance. But right now, I have my money on Ms. Electra delivering the comic sound bite for the entire series.

This Day in Sports History (Chamberlain Sets Points,Rebounds Records)

February 16, 1972 –A narrow 110-109 loss to the Phoenix Suns was mitigated to some extent for Wilt Chamberlain as he became the first player in NBA history to reach 30,000 points. In the same game, the Los Angeles Laker big man also gained an additional measure of satisfaction by erasing the old league record for rebounds held by Bill Russell, the Boston Celtic center who had continually stood between him and an NBA title while the 7 ft.-1-in. giant was with the Philadelphia Warriors and, later, the Philadelphia 76ers.

Less than three months later, Chamberlain was named Most Valuable Player of the NBA Championship Series as the Lakers defeated the New York Knicks in five games. It was the second title won by a Chamberlain-led team throughout his career.

Some critics scoffed at Chamberlain’s amazing achievements (including, of course, his 100-point game against the New York Knicks), pointing to his significant size advantage, particularly early in his career, over opponents, as well as the relative lack of success his teams achieved against the Russell-led Celtics (only one title for Chamberlain during that period). For that reason, he became very territorial about his achievements and anyone who threatened to eclipse them.

When Chamberlain began to be compared, sometimes unfavorably, to the next dominating big man who came along, Lew Alcindor (later known, of course, as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), “Wilt the Stilt” was quite annoyed and deprecated the younger player. (When his career came to an end, Kareem had some choices things to say about his older competitor in his memoir, Kareem.)

I remember that after Chamberlain’s death in 1999, Bill Russell appeared on Charlie Rose’s talk show and related a long-distance call that Wilt made in the past several years. A publication had just appeared asking if Dennis Rodman might be the best rebounder of all time. “Can you believe this?” an outraged Chamberlain yelled at his old rival, thinking—probably correctly—that the two of them could eat Rodman’s lunch.

Wilt claimed as much mastery of the bedroom as the basketball court. In his 1991 autobiography, A View From Above, he shocked the sports world with his assertion that he had slept with 20,000 women. (This almost matched his career record for rebounds.) The claim was silly and, because it was made at the time of Magic Johnson’s announcement that he had contracted the AIDS virus, viewed as irresponsible.

Chamberlain’s official cause of death was listed as congestive heart failure, but he had experienced tremendous weight loss only a few months before after dental surgery and had been suffering from the complications since then. (This worried me when I went in for similar surgery.)

Just think—nothing could take down the mightiest offensive force in basketball history but an errant tooth!