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The debate rages during these NBA playoffs, over whether Dennis Rodman is a leech clinging to the underbelly of a great team named the Bulls, a clutch player who helps make the Bulls great or a paper cut, a nagging nuisance you know is there but can never get rid of.
Of Dennis Rodman, we know this much.
He grabbed 14 rebounds in Wednesday's 86-82 win over Utah.
He clinched the 86-82 win by hitting all four of his free throws in the final 2:53.
He turned Utah's Karl Malone into a 6-foot-10, 260-pound balding ball of lint. From November through May, Karl Malone is Karl "Big Game" Malone. Put him in a June game against the Bulls, he is Karl "Small Game" Malone.
Malone abused Luc Longley when he was on the floor. When Rodman came in, "Small Game" vanished off the court completely.
Wasn't even a factor.
Pretty good night for a guy who's distracted, wouldn't you say?
Dennis missed Monday's practice and mandatory press conference. He showed up on TV, but it was on TNT at 7 p.m. on World Championship wrestling's Monday Nitro. There Dennis "Rodzilla" Rodman stood in a wrestling ring with Hollywood Hogan, with The Disciple, with WCW owner Eric Bischoff.
Around 8 p.m. Rodzilla and Hollywood turned the lights off in The Palace of Auburn Hills.
By 10 p.m. Rodzilla snatched a metal folding chair and conked Diamond Dallas Page on the head.
Rodman is not a role model, and things wrong with a guy who likes lipstick and dresses and boa feathers (on himself, no less) are too numerous to be counted at once.
That is undeniable.
Also undeniable is how Rodman pushes people's buttons. This is what he does, who he is, a button-pusher who lives to see how people react to his actions.
Reporters this week played up the "Dennis missed practice, Dennis hobnobbed with wrestlers, therefore, Dennis will sink the Bulls" angle. Balding, overweight, middle-aged Joe Fans fumed, "I can't believe that idiot gets away with that stuff, why, he wouldn't be on my team, not in a million years."
NBC's Jim Gray, who save for two instances is the best TV sideline sports reporter in the business, scolded Rodman seconds after the 86-82 win. He asked Rodman if he now realized the "catastrophic" mistake he had made.
For Gray, this was one of the two instances, the other being when he turned a New York prepubescent pip-squeak named Jeffrey Maier into a hero for skipping school.
Nuclear bombs and leaders of countries who tangle with 20-something interns are catastrophic. Rest assured, Rodzilla in a wrestling ring is not.
Dennis rides a stationary bike and doesn't sit on the bench. Dennis hangs out with fakes and frauds. Dennis is fined $10,000 for missing a press conference but gets paid $250,000 by the WCW. Dennis shouldn't wear wine-with-everything lipstick, it doesn't go good with his blue velvet eye shadow.
Dennis Dennis bo-bennis, bo-nana, fana, fo-fennis, me, mi, mo-mennis, Dennis.
The button-pusher was at his best this week.
That the Bulls love Rodman's antics in a secret sort of way is apparent. Between Sunday and Wednesday, reporters didn't talk about the Bulls vs. Jazz. They talked about Dennis being what they percieved as a menace and how this could bury the Bulls.
It's brilliant. How do you take pressure away? With distractions.
Roy Firestone interviewed Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight last year on an Up Close special. Bob Knight, it turns out, is a Dennis Rodman guy. Think about that: Dennis Rodman playing for Bob Knight. Knight tells Firestone Rodman could play on his team anywhere, anytime.
Knight sees Rodman for what he is, a walking circus, Barnum & Bailey, a flamboyant pitchman.
He also sees not a good but a great basketball player who hustles every second on the court, who plays the game with a passion equaled by few.
Are there better players? Yes. But no one sacrifices his body by diving after loose basketballs, on the floor or in the seats, like Rodman.
Take away the hair, dresses, makeup, nose rings and earrings, Knight and Rodman are one and the same.
OK, maybe not exactly the same.
But like Rodman, Knight pulls the distraction bit whenever the NCAA Tournament rolls around. Remember the whip?
Rodman is in Detroit at The Palace of Auburn Hills in a wrestling ring on a Monday. He treats Malone like crumpled paper on a basketball court at the United Center in Chicago two days later.
"As usual," Bulls coach Phil Jackson said after the 86-82 win, "(Dennis) takes himself out of a hole and finds a way to redeem himself."
Does Dennis Rodman live by a different set of rules than other players? Yes. Jackson has said it. MJ has said it. Scottie Pippen has said it.
They don't care. Why should we?
That's the way it is with good teams, winning teams, anyway. Look at Jimmy Johnson and the Dallas Cowboys. They won two Super Bowls under him. He always said he never treated every player the same. Quarterback Troy Aikman, he would say, would not get the same treatment as a backup offensive lineman. He says the same things now about the players he has in Miami.
The bottom line is, the Bulls win with Rodman. Still, "the Bulls can win without Rodman" people exist.
OK. We'll do it their way.
Say the Bulls didn't have Rodman in Wednesday's 86-82 win. Would the Bulls have won that game?
No. Because Longley played like ear wax. Because Rodman hit the big free throws.
Every team Rodman has played for in the NBA - Bulls, Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs - won at least 48 games.
Utah coach Jerry Sloan says he wouldn't deal with Rodman, wouldn't want a guy who skips an occasional practice on his team.
He said winning is important but not that important.
Good thing.
With Rodman, the Bulls are going to win another NBA title.
With Malone's "Small Game" disappearing as we speak, Sloan's Jazz is going to lose in June - again.
