The Worm Goes to Mexico: Dennis Rodman and Liga Nacional de Baloncesto

I could fill an entire website with Dennis Rodman stories.

But here’s one of the lesser-told tales about the 6 foot 7, colorful-haired, cross-dressing, 5x NBA champion – The Worm goes to Mexico.

Never Wanted to be a Maverick

Most fans fondly remember Rodman’s early years as a “Bad Boy” Piston where he steadily improved his game or his run on the Bull’s second three-peat team, perfectly complementing Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen like a group of women that secretly hate each other.

But few recall his last couple of years in the league, playing 23 games for the LA Lakers in the 1998-99 season before being released in the offseason, or his brief 12-game stint with Dallas the following season, where he tallied six techs, two ejections, and a one-game suspension in Rodman-esque fashion before getting waived.

It was visible he never wanted to be a Maverick.

After retiring for a few years, wrestling the late Curt Hennig in an Australian Outback match, and hosting a bunch of wild house parties at his place in Newport Beach, Rodman returned finally to the court in 2003.

This is where our story starts.

The Worm Goes to Mexico

According to his last memoir, I Should be Dead by Now, Rodzilla’s triumphant return was supposed to happen with the NBA’s New York Knicks. But things literally went south.

Mere days before joining the Knicks summer league team, he appeared on the ABC talk show The View, where he jokingly said something about being ghey.

Knicks owner and notorious curmudgeon James Dolan saw this and had second thoughts about signing Rodman, who got “totally fucked” in the process.

With the Knicks deal dead and no other team opting to sign him to their training camp roster, The Worm headed to the land of cartels and piñatas to make a few bucks and prove he could still play professionally at a high level.

For a cool $50K – about 340,000 pesos, Rodman played a grand total of 30 minutes across two games for Fuerza Regia de Monterrey, which amounts to $1,500 per minute! Not a bad payday if you can get it.

How did he do?

Well, he got booed in the first game after straining his groin and having to sit early. However, he fared much better in the second contest, pulling down 12 rebounds in 24 minutes of playing time with typical flare.

Looking further into Fuerza Regia, which means “Royal Force” for this story, they apparently have a history of making splash signings.

Including bringing in the tallest pro basketball player in the world, 7 foot 9 Sun Mingming in 2007.

This is probably because the team wasn’t very good back in the early 2000s, but they have come on since. Becoming the Golden State Warriors of the LNBP, winning three of the last five league titles.

Sometimes Hard Work Doesn’t Pay Off

Rodman’s brief, albeit decent Mexico adventure didn’t translate into an NBA return as he had hoped.

In his own words:

My attempt at a comeback was a rat fuck of gigantic proportions

His age, 44 at the time, played a factor and perhaps former NBA commissioner David Stern did too.

In true conspiratorial fashion, there’s no evidence to prove this, but Rodman had a gut feeling that someone was shutting down his comeback attempts and that someone was the commish he had caused so much grief for over the years with his antics.

But don’t feel bad for ol’ Hot Rod, after all, he got to bang Carmen Electra, host a wife-carrying contest in Finland, and visit North Korea✌

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