When the Game Was War by Rich Cohen

Author:Rich Cohen [Cohen, Rich]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2023-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

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The history-making acquisition for the Pistons came in 1986, when Jack McCloskey got John Salley and Dennis Rodman in a single draft.

First, John Salley.

Detroit took him in the first round with the eleventh pick overall in 1986. Tall and athletic, Salley could play forward or center. He got up and down the court as fast as anyone. A star at Canarsie High School in Brooklyn, then at Georgia Tech, he would have gone in the first round of any draft. His talent was easy to recognize. Six-eleven, 230 pounds—scouts called him supple, lithe. If Mahorn was a pipe, Salley was a pipe cleaner, sharp, bendable, and tough. To the fans, he was “Spider.”

Here’s the strange part: Although John Salley was Jack McCloskey’s first pick in 1986, he was not his first choice. Dennis Rodman was his first choice, but McCloskey knew he wouldn’t need a top pick to get Rodman. Dennis had come into his body and game off the radar, a scout’s dream of buried treasure. He grew up on the wrong side of the highway in Dallas. He was one of the many offspring of the aptly named Philander Rodman, who only made a serious effort to meet his son after Dennis had become rich and famous. Rodman had been a pipsqueak in high school, a bully magnet, taunted because he was small and strange. “I was just a kid from the projects too skinny or too funny-looking to be taken seriously,” he wrote in his memoir Bad as I Wanna Be.

He shimmied when he played pinball—that’s why they called him “the Worm.” And that’s how he played hoops, too—all shimmy and hustle. His sisters were basketball stars in college, but he was too small for high school varsity. He quit the JV team, but not the game. He played in the park near his house. He was 5'7" senior year, a jug-eared goofball seemingly destined for nothing good. He worked a variety of jobs after graduation, cleaned cars at the Oldsmobile dealership, did yard work and construction, and was a janitor at the Dallas airport. Late one night, the concourse deserted, the departures board showing the names of cities he’d seemingly never visit, Dennis squeezed his hand through a jewelry store security grate and stole fifteen watches. Easily identified, he confessed, returned the watches, was fired and arrested, but the charges were dropped. He was a kid who’d made a stupid mistake and deserved a second chance.

Then Rodman’s life began to change. He grew ten inches in one year. He grew so fast you could almost hear it. He was the talk of the playground. He still operated with that wild, little-man chip on his shoulder, only now he was not so little. As with Jordan and Pippen, growing late turned out to be a blessing.

He was recruited by a coach at Southeastern Oklahoma, a Division II program. He became a small-school star, but there were issues. He could be hard to control, was a showoff, pumped his fist when he scored, played to the kids in the stands.

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