Jimmy Butler and Derrick Rose are not best friends, and that’s perfectly fine. It caused a bit of a stir at the time, but it has nothing to do with playing basketball. Some people may wonder how effective Butler and Rose can be together on the court if they aren’t at least friendly off of it. But there’s one all-important historical precedent that says they’ll be just fine: Dennis Rodman.
By now, we’ve been over just how crazy Dennis Rodman was off the court and just how amazing he was on it. Many of us have certainly wondered how he was able to divide the two parts of him so effectively for so many years, but in a 2011 interview now seeing the light of day, Rodman says he committed to rigorous separation of his job and his personal life. There’s video in the link, but here’s a transcript of the key passage:
I thought it was important for me to go there and win. I don’t have to have a job to speak to people… Talk[ing] to people will come. Relat[ing] to people will come. If they see you performing and doing your job and being with the group, that’s all I want. Me and Scottie, we’re cool today. You know, we’re a little older, a little wiser… Me and Scottie and Michael [Jordan] never had a conversation in three years in Chicago. Only time we had a conversation [was] on the court. That was it.
Rodman went on to say that of the few players he did talk to, one of them was Steve Kerr. While that must have made for some amazing “opposites attract” moments, we all know that Kerr is just the kind of laid-back guy who could roll with the punches when it came to Dennis. A preview of the interview, which you can watch in bits and pieces here, is below:
So remember, if the Bulls could win championships without some of them being on speaking terms, Bulls fans don’t need to worry about Rose and Butler being BFFs.
(Via Graham Bensinger)
