Rodman Gets Kicked in Wallet

News item: NBA orders Dennis Rodman to undergo counseling.

Comment: Freud would come out of his grave for this one.

In what should not have been a surprise, the Chicago Bulls’ tempest blew over the line, again--kicking a courtside photographer during a game at Minnesota--and the NBA hit him with his most severe penalty to date, again, fining him $25,000, suspending him “at least” until after the All-Star game--11 games, worth $1 million in salary--and ordering him to see a counselor it designates.

With the penalty clause in his contract for missing games, the real cost to Rodman is more than $2 million. After the All-Star break, he will be required to meet with Commissioner David Stern and personally request reinstatement.

“Until Dennis can provide meaningful assurances that he will conform his conduct on the playing court to acceptable standards, including not placing others at physical risk, his suspension will continue,” Stern said.

Rodman’s agent protested the severity of the league’s action and the National Basketball Players Assn. filed a grievance against it.

Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, the city attorney said he may still file criminal charges, probably fifth-degree assault, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $3,000 fine.

During a routine Bulls’ victory at Minnesota on Wednesday, Rodman tripped over Eugene Amos, a 48-year-old TV cameraman, on the baseline, kicked him, then stood over him and berated him.

Amos--a Bulls’ fan who grew up in Chicago--was taken off by stretcher and hospitalized briefly. Rodman apologized but later insisted he had kicked Amos in the knee, not the groin as Amos claimed, and had only intended to hit his camera. Besides, Rodman, suggested, the guy flopped.

However, Rodman didn’t contest kicking him and, in fact, has thrown similar tantrums before, diving across the baseline in Chicago last March, colliding with a Chicago Tribune photographer, then seizing the man’s camera and smashing it to the floor.

“I know I hit [Amos] in the thigh,” Rodman said after Wednesday’s game. “If you look at the tape, I hit him in the thigh. He was talking to me.

“I said, ‘I’m sorry I hit you.’

“He said, ‘Get away from me. . . . ‘

“All of a sudden, he passed out. He got carried off on a stretcher? It was a little dramatic to me. I’ll send him some roses . . . love, Dennis.”

Nor were any of the Bulls more sympathetic.

“It looked like he kicked him in the knee and all of a sudden he came up with that falsetto,” Coach Phil Jackson said.

“When you’re that close to the game, you’ve got to be willing to get out of the way,” Scottie Pippen said. “This is the NBA. This is our court.”

Two days later, with time to reflect, the league swinging into action and their fans blasting Rodman on local talk shows, the Bulls were edging away from their man.

“We do not condone what Dennis did,” General Manager Jerry Krause said. “Dennis did this, that’s a fact of life, and he’s going to have to get this straightened out with the league. Obviously, when you get suspended, you’re not helping the team. I think Dennis has let himself down.”

Since last summer’s drawn-out contract negotiations, Bull officials have privately acknowledged they knew Rodman was likely to act up. If they didn’t suspect it would be worse than ever and would be met with a harsher response than ever, they misjudged their man and their commissioner.

Last spring, in a relative honeymoon season, Rodman was suspended for six game for head butting a referee. This season, he came back unhappy at having to accept a contract half the size of the one he demanded publicly, announced he no longer cared, slouched through several games, used an obscenity on a live TV feed back to Chicago and was suspended for two games by the team.

He returned, claiming to be revitalized--his contract has a penalty clause for every game he misses after three--playing well and without incident until Wednesday.

In relaxed surroundings, Rodman is lucid, aware of what he’s doing and happy with the attention he gets. Yet his outlaw act is more than shtick. He’s isolated and has few dealings with teammates. The stars, Michael Jordan and Pippen, are openly skeptical of him.

The suspension is the league’s second-longest, after the 26 games levied against the Lakers’ Kermit Washington for his 1977 punch-out of Rudy Tomjanovich. Adding in the losses in his incentive clauses, Krause acknowledged, Rodman’s total tab is more than $2 million.

Rodman’s agent, Dwight Manley protested Friday, calling the suspension, “excessive and unjust . . . way out of line. . . .

“To say he needs professional help from a counselor is unfair,” Manley added. “He’s perfectly sane and cognizant and besides, it’s a team’s job to attend to a player’s mental affairs. And the Bulls are happy with his state of mind.”

Likewise, the players’ association said it would challenge the suspension.

Said Executive Director Billy Hunter, “While we do not condone Dennis’ actions, the discipline the league seeks to impose is excessive and unprecedented.”

In Minneapolis, Amos said he was embarrassed.

“I feel really humiliated,” he said. “I grew up in Chicago and the Bulls have been my idols for as long as I can remember. I’m very hurt by this, very hurt indeed.”

As if to round out his night at Minnesota, Rodman twice used the same obscenity on the same postgame TV show, for which the Bulls suspended him in November.

Rodman, practicing Friday with the Bulls at their facility in suburban Deerfield, Ill., had no comment. As everyone, prosecutors and defenders alike, agrees, he said and did enough Wednesday night.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Paying the Price

LONGEST NBA SUSPENSIONS

*--*

Year Player (Team) G Reason 1977 Kermit Washington (Lakers) 26 Punching Rudy Tomjanovich 1997 Dennis Rodman (Bulls) 11 Kicking courtside cameraman 1995 Vernon Maxwell (Rockets) 10 Going into stands, hitting fan 1996 Nick Van Exel (Lakers) 7 Shoving referee 1996 Dennis Rodman (Bulls) 6 Head butting a referee 1993 Greg Anthony (Knicks) 5 Fighting

*--*

LARGEST NBA FINES

Year Player (Team) Fine

1997 Dennis Rodman (Bulls) $25,000

1996 Nick Van Exel (Lakers) $25,000

1996 Dennis Rodman (Bulls) $20,000

1995 Vernon Maxwell (Rockets) $20,000

1993 Charles Barkley (Suns) $20,000 (fighting)

1993 Greg Anthony (Knicks) $20,000

1990 Bill Laimbeer (Pistons) $20,000 (fighting)

RODMAN’S TROUBLES

A list of incidents involving Dennis Rodman:

* Oct. 9, 1992: Misses opening of Detroit Pistons’ training camp, saying his pending divorce and the departure of Coach Chuck Daly has sapped his desire to play basketball. Rodman misses all of camp.

* Nov. 20, 1992: Suspended by Pistons for three games for refusing to go on a trip.

* Feb. 11, 1993: Police are notified after Rodman leaves a friend’s house with a gun. He is later found asleep in his truck at The Palace at Auburn Hills, where he was shooting baskets.

* March 11, 1993: Suspended one game for skipping practice.

* March 14, 1993: Fined $500 for leaving the bench during a fight in a game with the Chicago Bulls.

* Oct. 1, 1993: Traded to San Antonio Spurs.

* Dec. 20, 1993: Suspended one game and fined $7,500 for head butting Chicago’s Stacey King and failing to leave the court in a timely fashion after being ejected.

* Jan. 4, 1994: Fined $10,000 for failing to leave the court and verbally abusing referees in game against the Lakers.

* March 4, 1994: Suspended one game and fined $5,000 for head butting Utah’s John Stockton and making derogatory comments about referees after a game.

* May 2, 1994: Fined $10,000 and suspended for Game 3 of the Spurs’ first-round playoff series with Utah after being called for a flagrant foul and receiving two technicals, his sixth ejection of the season.

* Oct. 20, 1994: Fined $15,000 by Spurs for arriving late to an exhibition in which he was not expected to play.

* Nov. 2, 1994: Suspended indefinitely by Spurs for throwing a bag of ice toward Coach Bob Hill and an official after receiving his second technical in an exhibition game.

* Nov. 12, 1994: Begins 14-game paid leave of absence from Spurs.

* March 19, 1995: Separates shoulder in a motorcycle accident, an injury that would cause him to sit out 14 games late in the season.

* May 1, 1995: Fined $7,500 and assessed one flagrant foul point for throwing Denver’s Dikembe Mutombo to the floor in a game.

* May 14, 1995: Benched during Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals for arguing with Coach Hill and refusing to join team huddles.

* Oct. 2, 1995: Traded to Bulls for Will Perdue.

* Jan. 12, 1996: Fined $5,000 for verbally abusing referees and failing to leave the court in a timely fashion after being ejected in a game with Seattle.

* March 18, 1996: Suspended for six games and fined $20,000 for head-butting a referee after his ejection from a game against New Jersey.

* Dec. 10, 1996: Suspended by Bulls for two games after using profanity in a live television interview.

* Jan. 17, 1997: Suspended by NBA for at least 11 games and fined $25,000 for kicking a courtside television photographer during a game at Minnesota.