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Starks proud of Hall of Fame for embracing Rodman
Published: 8/11/2011 11:27 PM
Last Modified: 8/11/2011 11:27 PM

Those who cast votes for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame tend to favor (A) scorers and (B) players with a history of -- for lack of a better word -- behaving.

And then there’s Dennis Rodman, who averaged 7.3 points a game during his NBA career and, as his autobiography suggested, was as bad as he wanted to be.

Rodman, who played collegiately at Southeastern State in Durant, is being enshrined this weekend. One of the folks applauding Rodman’s inclusion is former NBA guard and Tulsa Central alum John Starks.

“I’m happy for him,” Starks said. “I’m glad he’s getting his just due and going into the Hall of Fame. That says a lot about the Hall of Fame. They didn’t let his distractions off the court dictate whether he was going to get him into the Hall of Fame. They just judged it by what he did on the court and that says a lot.”

What Rodman did on the court, and he was sort of ornery in that way too, was avoid putting the ball in the basket. He relished his role as a player who rebounded (he led the NBA in rebounding for a record seven consecutive seasons) and he did whatever dirty work was necessary en route to five championships.

Said Starks, “A big man (now) can look at Dennis and ask ‘how can I play 13 or 14 years in this league and not be a top scorer? How can I be relevant to our team?’ And that’s by rebounding and playing defense. That’s a rare commodity in the league nowadays. If you do those things, you will always have a job in the NBA.”

Starks first crossed paths with Rodman when they played against each other in a pro-am tournament, the Pig’s Pop-Off, at McLain High School. Other NBA players (like Karl Malone) drifted through Tulsa to play in what used to be an annual northside event. Starks said Rodman already had made a name (and a nickname, The Worm) for himself by the time Rodman played in the Pig’s Pop-Off. At that time, Rodman wasn’t opposed to scoring. He was a big scorer in Durant.

Years later, Starks was a starting guard for the New York Knicks and Rodman was an enforcer for the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls. Starks was asked if he looked forward to sharing a court with Rodman or dreaded sharing a court with Rodman.

“Both,” answered Starks. “You know he is going to do something crazy at all times. He and (Charles Oakley) used to get after it all the time. He gets under your skin. That’s what he’s all about. He plays you hard and he’s going to do dirty things to you and try to get you off your game. His madness made sense to him. There was a method to his madness, as they say.”


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Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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