If Rodman Becomes a Laker, They’ll Need a Ringmaster

“First of all, if my grandmother played with Michael Jordan, she’d have a ring too.

“Let’s get down to the facts now. He played with Isiah [Thomas], one of the great players in the world. He got a ring. He played with Mike. He got a ring. . . . Last year he was just hiding behind Michael and [Scottie] Pippen. They did all the work. All he did was rebound.

“In other words, he’s a bum.”

--Shaquille O’Neal on Dennis Rodman, CBS Radio, November 1998

Guess we could file that one under “forgettable quotes,” too, huh?

There are several ways one could describe the Lakers’ ongoing pursuit of Dennis Rodman, but we’re going with:

L-O-O-N-E-Y T-U-N-E-S.

If it works out--which is not how some people close to Rodman are betting--he’ll win them a title, while turning it into a circus that will no longer be about Shaquille O’Neal or Kobe Bryant or any of them, only Dennis: his cross-dressing . . . his constant flouting of the rules . . . missed practices . . . forays to Las Vegas (did anyone tell Jerry Buss that Rodman would be close enough to realize his dream of commuting to work from the Strip?) . . . marriages . . . annulments . . . head-butts . . . crotch kicks . . . appearances before David Stern . . . appearances with Jay Leno, which may be so frequent, “The Tonight Show” will be renamed “Lakers Postgame Report.”

And that’s the hopeful scenario.

More likely, Rodman will be out of shape after months of partying, will get depressed, lose interest--if he was bored winning three titles with Michael Jordan, why not with a bunch of kids in La La Land?--and start absenting himself or worse, while reporters buzz around, asking everyone about him--all Dennis, all the time--until there won’t be a Laker who doesn’t hate the sound of his name.

“His thing is conditioning,” says the Chicago Tribune’s Sam Smith, a three-year Rodman veteran, “and he isn’t in condition.

“It’ll be like last year. He comes in, he isn’t ready to play. He gets morose and then the real show starts. I’ve seen this act for a couple years now. It isn’t pretty, but it takes up a lot of newspaper space, I’ll tell you.”

The Bulls had a support system--Phil Jackson, Jerry Krause, Jack Haley, Dwight Manley--that kept Rodman from jumping the reservation for more than a day or two at a time. With the iron-willed Jordan, they were distraction-proof, ignoring local hysteria, feuds with management, even Rodman, although he was always the main threat.

Jackson is in Montana. Krause has more pressing business. Manley is no longer in the picture, having lost the battle for Dennis’ ear to someone who could blow in it--Mrs. Rodman, Carmen Electra, who married Dennis in a dawn ceremony in a Vegas chapel after a night at the Hard Rock Casino and stuck with him in the bad times, when her hubby petitioned for an annulment before deciding to reconcile, even if they haven’t seen that much of each other since.

Rodman, the person, as opposed to the freak he plays on TV, is almost an innocent in the process, tugged to and fro by hangers-on. In real life, he’s a shy, lonely, troubled man, who, grieving at the breakup of his first marriage, went for a ride on this pierced/tattooed alter ego and doesn’t know how to get off.

How much can the Lakers’ post-teens handle? They were fractured by the tug-of-war between Del Harris and Nick Van Exel, who was finally exiled to Denver. Van Exel, at least, wore men’s clothes and talked to teammates.

Rodman campaigned for years to be a Laker, with Jerry West barring the door. Then Buss bumped into Rodman on one of his nights out and came away thinking, this could be the answer to our problems!

The players campaigned for Rodman, as if they had any idea of what they were getting themselves into. Shaq wants a “thug” alongside him and obviously isn’t particular about which one. When Rodman sneered he was overpaid on Leno in November, O’Neal promised to “kick his rear end.”

(Being a team player, O’Neal is willing to put his personal feelings on hold if Dennis takes beaucoup rebounds and they get a ring. Then Shaq can kick his rear end.)

Harris, falling into the classic trap--Anything for my big guy, I’ll just overlook a peccadillo or two and everything will be OK--went along.

Dennis has his own problems, namely coming up with a salary befitting his status. Because the Lakers are restricted to $1 million, he wants a movie deal with Fox, which is where talks snagged. Maybe his people from International Creative Management want Dennis to do Shakespeare, or direct.

Probably, he doesn’t feel much like playing basketball. On the other hand, it’s better than hosting Super Bowl bashes for transvestites and anyone else who’ll pony up $50.

You’ve got to admit, it’ll keep him in the spotlight. Otherwise, as Bob Costas once noted, he’ll be just another guy trying to get on the Ricki Lake Show, where lots of guests look like he does.

Of course, Dennis has promised he will not change . . . and Buss has said they will not ask him to, so Showtime may soon take on a different and more prurient meaning, after which Laker fans will have to pray it works, or if it doesn’t, that there are enough pieces left to pick up.

FACES AND FIGURES

Cleveland Cavalier President Wayne Embry, perhaps a tad carried away at signing Zydrunas Ilgauskas to a $70-million extension: “I never saw Kareem Abdul-Jabbar go behind his back and dunk.” . . . On the other hand, Embry hasn’t seen Ilgauskas score 38,387 points in the NBA, either. . . . Another short honeymoon: The Milwaukee Bucks, who thought Terrell Brandon quit on Chris Ford last season, were incensed when the point guard sat out both exhibitions, claiming an upset stomach and a bruised thigh, and didn’t even sit on the bench in the second. “It’s my fault,” Coach George Karl said. “I didn’t address it. I didn’t want to address it during the game, but I will address it. He’ll be on the bench from now on.” And, apparently, somewhere else next summer when he becomes a free agent. . . . Fast learner: Having been run over by the Lakers last spring, and turned loose by the Seattle SuperSonics, Karl picks the Lakers to win the West--and the SuperSonics to fall out of the race. “Wally Walker,” Karl said of his old general manager. “It’s his team now. We protected him for awhile. Now he’ll be making those deals he wanted to make four, five years ago.”

Right on schedule: Grant Hill is upset at Bison Dele (a.k.a. Brian Williams), again, for taking three days off because of a bruised thigh. “Just tell him that we need him out there,” Hill said. “We are not good enough to have guys sit out for a while and chill, then come back out when the games start.” Dele, asked if he could play in Detroit’s opener: “All I know is, I’m going to die one day. That is the only thing I can guarantee.” . . . First Rocket goes down, right on schedule: Antoine Carr, 37, became the first of the old Houston Rockets to be sidelined because of injury, getting a knee scoped before the season started. Desperate for a big man, the Rockets signed former Clipper Stanley Roberts, estimated at his usual preseason weight of 320. Said Hakeem Olajuwon: “Once he comes to the team, we’ll work with him on a strict diet, exercise, stretching, where he has a new life that can bring out his potential. He has tremendous potential. When he does this, he will realize this potential.” . . . Reaction: Ha ha ha ha ha.

Final count on Denver Nuggets represented by Tony Dutt, the agent who brought them Antonio McDyess: Five of the 14. The others are Van Exel, Eric Washington, Keon Clark and John Turner. . . . Slow start: New Knick Dennis Scott, after arriving at 250 pounds and finding himself on the end of the bench: “Once I find my niche and Coach Gundy figures out how he wants to use me, the rest will fall into place.” Uh, Dennis, that’s Coach Jeff Van Gundy, who has worse problems: He is walking a tightrope, reassuring Patrick Ewing he won’t ask him to change his game--while asking Patrick to change his game. Van Gundy, defending the status quo: “The most often discussed and misperceived issue that surrounds our team is that Patrick has to totally change the way he plays. It’s unbelievable how who shoots consumes everyone’s mind. I don’t understand the obsession. Patrick won’t say this, and I know it’s going to be, ‘There goes Van Gundy protecting Patrick.’ But just please, someone watch the game.” Van Gundy, suggesting one little change, such as worrying less about offense than defense and making up for the traded Charles Oakley’s rebounds: “Patrick’s No. 1 primary emphasis has to be rebounding. He’s our best rebounder. He already has done a great job in rebounding but it’s got to be where he has nearly a career year in rebounding if not a career year. If he’s saving himself for any one thing, if he has to be slow getting upcourt to catch his wind, you’ve got to be there to rebound the ball.” . . . New Jersey’s Sam Cassell on the Knicks: “They’ve got a good team on paper, but they’d be lying to themselves if they think they won’t miss Oakley. For 82 games, Oak was going to be there--if he wasn’t suspended.”

Seattle Coach Paul Westphal, on the days when they played three games in a row: “We play Friday night in Phoenix, Saturday night in San Diego against the Clippers and a Sunday morning 11 o’clock game for TV against the Lakers and Magic Johnson and all those guys. And you know, you’d think we get killed. And you know, we only got beat by 40 or 50.”