After his sisters repeatedly embarrassed him on the court, Dennis Rodman used to motivate himself by thinking about how much money he would lose if he lost. The idea of losing all that hard-earned cash motivated him to win before.
Dennis Rodman is a retired American professional basketball player who used his sisters for motivation after they continuously embarrassed him on the court. “I couldn’t beat them,” he said in an interview with ESPN.
Dennis Rodman was a late bloomer in the basketball world. When he was younger, he never imagined himself playing professional basketball. He couldn’t defeat his sisters on the court even four years before the Detroit Pistons took him in the second round of the 1986 NBA Draft. Rodman used his two sisters as incentive to improve, and it helped launch his NBA career into the Hall of Fame.
Dennis Rodman was a standout basketball player at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
On April 10, 2017, in Auburn Hills, Michigan, former Detroit Piston Dennis Rodman participates in a halftime ceremony at the last NBA game at the Palace of Auburn Hills between the Detroit Pistons and the Washington Wizards. | Getty Images/Gregory Shamus
Rodman wasn’t quite six feet tall when he graduated from high school. Rodman wasn’t very athletic at South Oak Hill High School in Texas. He got a job as an airport janitor after graduation. Rodman claims he gained 10 inches in two years and chose to return to basketball.
After a friend of the Rodman family gave the coach a tip about his unexpected development and desire in playing basketball again, he enrolled at Cooke County College. Before being academically ineligible, he averaged more than 17 points and 13 rebounds in his single semester there.
Rodman then went to Southeastern Oklahoma State University, where he rose to prominence. He was a three-time NAIA All-American with a career average of 25.7 points and 15.7 rebounds.
He led his team to the NAIA playoffs in 1986, scoring 46 points and pulling down 32 rebounds. He attended a pre-draft camp for NBA hopefuls, which drew the attention of the Pistons, who picked him with the 27th overall choice in the second round.
Dennis Rodman was inspired by his sisters’ basketball accomplishments.
Rodman had no desire to continue playing basketball just four years before the Pistons gave him life in the NBA.
According to United Press International, Rodman remarked after being selected by the Pistons, “If you could only have been around me four years ago, you would have seen the sort of guy I was.” “I was a little sluggish. “I imagined I’d simply work or do anything,” she says.
While he wasn’t accomplishing much, his sister, Debra, 6-foot-3, was a standout at Louisiana Tech and then went on to play professionally for the Dallas Diamonds before moving to Europe. Kim, his other sister, was a 6-foot-1 basketball player at Stephen F. Austin.
Rodman couldn’t defeat his sisters in two-on-two games as a kid, even with the aid of a buddy.
Rodman said, “I couldn’t defeat them.” “They’d constantly take me and a buddy out and beat us up.” “If they could do it, I could do it,” I eventually concluded one day.
That was the start of his famous basketball career.
Rodman moved from being a slacker to one of the NBA’s toughest workers.
Rodman has one of the most illustrious NBA careers of all time. Despite his tremendous growth surge, he was just 6-foot-8, making him undersized for most NBA forwards. At 210 pounds, he was also on the slender side.
Rodman competed against much larger and stronger players despite being small by NBA standards. Many evenings were spent diving for loose balls and outhustling other players for rebounds. He also spent time in the film room and during warmups watching players’ balls spin to gain a better sense of which direction the ball would bounce off the hoop.
The guy known as The Worm was able to achieve success as a result of it all.
He topped the NBA in rebounding for seven consecutive seasons. During that time, he never had a season with less than 14.9 boards on average. Rodman averaged 13.1 rebounds per game over the course of his 14-year career and was a part of five championship teams. In 2011, he was named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Not bad for a slacker who was often shamed on the basketball court by his sisters.
RELATED: Dennis Rodman Wants to Jump Out of a Plane Without a Parachute to See if God Exists
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