February 11, 1993 - While unable to be fully confirmed, the timeline of this report would seem to coincide with the infamous evening in which former Detroit Pistons forward Dennis Rodman was discovered unconscious by police in the parking lot of the Palace of Auburn Hills with a shotgun in his hands.
By all accounts, this moment in February is not to be confused with another moment, possibly occurring in April of 1993, when TNT reporter Craig Sager confronted a suicidal Rodman at the Landing Strip, a Detroit strip club, to talk him out of suicide. For one, Sager is reporting the story above from TNT studios in Atlanta, whereas Rodman had been home in Detroit nursing a calf injury.
Rodman on the February incident, via Bleacher Report:
"For me, I wanted to be loved by somebody or someone because I was never loved by my mother or father because they were never there. So when I got to Detroit, they embraced me as one. And then when things started to disassemble [after the Pistons' Bad Boys run], I started to feel betrayed. I said, "What the f--k's going on?" I was so enamored of the way that they loved me and being embraced by the people in Detroit. So once a lot of the people that loved me were gone, and [former Pistons coach] Chuck Daly was gone, I was all by myself. I had nobody to turn to. I wasn't really connecting with my mother or father. I had no contact with them.
So one day, I wrote a note and went to the parking lot of the Palace. I had a gun rack, and I had a gun in my car. I had it in my hand. But for some reason, I played this music. I put it on, and I was listening to this song and this music, and I was just debating. It didn't have anything to do with basketball. It had to do with this love that I wanted, and it suddenly just left me.
And this song came on. It was Pearl Jam. "Even Flow" and "Black" and stuff like that. And I had the gun in my lap, and next thing you know, I fell asleep listening to Pearl Jam. Then I woke up, and all the cops and everyone was there. I didn't know what was going on. I totally forgot I had a gun in my hand. They got me out of the car. That was pretty much what it was. It wasn't about the game of basketball. It was about feeling betrayed, because I wanted to be loved so much in my life. And when I got to the NBA, I didn't expect the NBA to be like that. I didn't expect teams to just trade players and you say, "OK, this is a business," and forget about it. That was what drove me to that point."
Sager told Sports Illustrated in 2015 about The Landing Strip incident.
“He had the gun," Sager said. "He was going to do it. I told him how stupid that would be.”
Rodman's run with the Pistons officially came to a close at the conclusion of the 1992-93 regular season, at which point he demanded a trade, being sent to the San Antonio Spurs in exchange for Sean Elliott.
Rodman's account of the February incident: [ Ссылка ]
Sager's account of the April incident: [ Ссылка ]
Chicago Tribune accounting of all matters: [ Ссылка ]
