NBA Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman was one of the most bizarre players in league history.
He had the colored hair, tattoos and piercings. He dated Madonna. He once wore a wedding dress. Among the crazy stories is the time he lost his agent, Dwight Manley, because of a sexual encounter with entertainer Carmen Electra ... in the middle of a flight.
Longtime NBA writer Mike Wise told the story during an interview with Back In The Day Hoops On SI.
"He was dating Carmen Electra at some point," Wise said. "Dwight Manley, his agent at the time. told me, I said, `Why did you stop representing him?' He goes, `I stopped representing him when he was having sex with Carmen Electra in the middle of a private plane and I just said, `It's too much. I was like, `I guess that's when you drop your client."
The weirdness of Rodman never affected his play. He won five championships while playing for the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons. He is considered the greatest rebounder in NBA history. But he's also one of the league's most eccentric players.
Author Reveals More Details About The Showtime Lakers
Author Jeff Pearlman wants to get one thing straight.
In 2014, he wrote a book called "Showtime" about the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers. Nearly a decade later, there was a television series released named "Winning Time" that had some questioning the facts.
They weren't the same, so Pearlman is once again explaining the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson Lakers on his YouTube channel to clear the air for those who thought the television show had some false parts.
"They were talking about the TV show, they weren't talking about the book," Pearlman said in an interview with Back In The Day Hoops On SI. "The book, I never had a single complaint about anything being wrong. The TV show is an adaptation of the book. I'm not really a Hollywood guy but they exaggerate and they elongate and they stretch. That's kind of what the medium is ... It's a dramatic retelling of a book."
Pearlman researched the Showtime Era during the 1980s with Pat Riley, James Worthy, Johnson and Jabbar for months. The rendition of book was made into a Hollywood version, but the YouTube channel takes a deeper dive into those teams.
"This is my first book that was actually turned into something," Pearlman said. "It's an absolute joy ... Like from Remember The Titans to We Are Marshall to Rudy. In Moneyball, I covered the A's. They never mentioned the A's had three of the five best starting pitchers in baseball. They never mentioned Eric Chavez at third and Miguel Tejada at short. It's a dramatic interpretation of someone's book."
Shandel Richardson is the publisher of Back In The Day Hoops On SI. He can be reached at shandelrich@gmail.com
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