Getting Rodman Just Proves Kids Do the Darndest Things

Dear Dennis,

What can I tell you, bro?

I know you’re cool but our players were getting upset, especially when we started getting waffled and those power forwards started squashing you. Of course, I believe your elbow was sore, your body was stiff, you had the flu, you just didn’t have it that night and you weren’t sure you wanted to play basketball in the first place, or whatever else you said.

Hey, maybe this was just bad timing! Maybe we can try it again!

You just keep on being you.

Later?

Jerry Buss

*

You’d like to think an organization as admired as the Lakers would learn something from a debacle of this magnitude but watching how they handled it and ended it, you can’t be sure.

Here’s what they should get out of it: a new-found humility, all around.

This was a mad frolic by the Laker kids, which includes not only their over-indulged superstars, especially Shaquille O’Neal, but the most frantic post-adolescent of them all, 66-year-old Jerry Buss.

The kids, having been around for six whole seasons in Shaq’s case, or two in Kobe Bryant’s, or not having fielded a champion in 10 years (after fielding five in the previous 10) in Buss’ case, decided they had to win a title right away.

Nor were they particular about how they did it.

Were they soft on defense? Forget looking in the mirror, or changing their own mind-set, they’d get a “thug” to handle that stuff for them.

Thus they arrived at the doorstep of Dennis Rodman, overlooking the “Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here” signs.

Rodman is a double-edged scythe in the best of times and these weren’t them. People close to him, noting his “marriage” to Carmen Electra, which seemed more like what other people call “dating,” only with vows and news conferences, and his split with his agent, Dwight Manley, said he was at a low ebb, even for him, which Rodman wasted no time in proving.

He put the Lakers on hold for four weeks while asking for under-the-table money. After signing, he played four games before his rebound totals fell into single figures, a sign he’d already lost interest, after which he began missing practices, refusing to go into games and ripping teammates for their selfishness.

Of course, the Laker brass now says he disappointed them, but whatever he did, he did it from the get-go. The truth is, they sold out to him.

Had they won at Portland last week, they’d still be saying what a genius and a leader Rodman is, how he’s mistreated by referees and hounded by the press, and Jerry West would still be stuffing his fist in his mouth.

West suspected from the beginning that Rodman didn’t really want to play basketball, but he was surrounded by people clamoring for Rodman--Buss, the players, even desperate Del Harris--and got out of their way.

By the one-week mark of “negotiations,” with Rodman refusing to even talk on the phone, West knew he was right and this was very wrong.

By the time Rodman joined them and then left again to work on his personal problems, West’s emotions were mixed between removing Rodman permanently, or himself, a dilemma he resolved by running the team from Malibu or from scouting trips.

So the Lakers’ living heart dropped out of sight. The players’ anger at Rodman smoldered as they pointed fingers at each other and moped through games.

It ended as it started, wrong and faint-hearted, with no sign the Lakers were, at least, repentant, united or wiser.

Having steered his organization into the void, Buss should have stood up and taken responsibility, with West at his side. Instead, they trotted out General Manager Mitch Kupchak, their third in command, just as they’d dangled Kurt Rambis for so long.

Nobody said what needed to be said: “This was our fault. If we didn’t know what Dennis would do, it’s on us, because he never hid it for a second. We owe it to our players and our fans to provide direction and we didn’t.”

Instead, they didn’t say much of anything. The available sources suggested that Rambis’ sending Rodman home started the ball rolling, but it’s hard to believe it wasn’t going downhill before that.

West and Kupchak, in Phoenix for the Desert Classic, spent Tuesday night getting the grisly details of their 27-point loss by phone from Portland, final proof that not only was this adventure beneath their dignity, not only was it not working, it was going backward at flank speed.

My suspicion is that West and Kupchak decided there and then, telling Rambis that the next time Rodman got an inch out of line, to call him on it.

Rodman being Rodman, that didn’t take long. Thursday he was one minute late, which is way early by his clock, which became either the final straw, or the pretext.

The Laker players who sponsored this project owe an apology or two themselves, something on the lines of: “From now on I’m just going to play and leave the personnel stuff to the professionals upstairs.”

But Shaq--who had recently begun wrestling rebounds away from Rodman--waved reporters away Friday. Maybe he’s embarrassed at his part in this. Maybe he misses Rodman.

The players may not even be united in their complaints. Some wanted Rodman. Some didn’t. Some wanted a shooter. Some are still muttering about the Glen Rice trade that undercut their new emphasis on defense.

Meanwhile, amazingly, Rodman has started fielding offers.

An NBA team wants him. The agent who represented Joey Buttafuoco, Tonya Harding and John Wayne Bobbitt in wring-the-last-drop-from-their-celebrity campaigns said she could get Dennis work.

As his Laker tour proved, Rodman doesn’t need work, but professional help. This was an ideal situation for him but he didn’t come close to holding up his end. Who said his responsibilities end when the final buzzer sounds, and the clubs on the Sunset Strip heated up?

Oh, I forgot. Buss as much as told him that, even if it wasn’t true.

Rodman needs this attention-demanding, please-please-don’t-leave-me-alone whirl to be over. He’s still thought to be worth $10 million, with millions in deferred money owed by the Chicago Bulls. He needs people who care about him as a person rather than an earner or host. He needs to get off the shuttle between Las Vegas and his own personal hell.

What the Lakers need is for their grown-ups to reassume control.

They still may be the next big thing. All that fawning people do over Shaq may have fostered the illusion he’s supposed to help run things, but he’s still a massive talent who brings it every night. If he and Bryant have things to work out, Bryant’s the perimeter player Shaq needs, just as Shaq’s the center Bryant needs.

But if they don’t pull this together, they won’t be the first great young team to blow itself up (see: Shaq’s Orlando Magic, Chris Webber’s Golden State Warriors, Webber’s Washington Wizards, the Jason Kidd-Jimmy Jackson-Jamal Mashburn Dallas Mavericks), just the latest, the greatest and the most spectacular.