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Warriors' Bob Myers Speaks on a Player Asking for a Vacation Like Dennis Rodman
May 16, 2020
Golden State Warriors president of basketball operations Bob Myers said he doesn't believe a player could successfully enjoy a midseason vacation in the social-media era similar to what the Chicago Bulls' Dennis Rodman pulled off during the 1997-98 NBA season.
Rodman was shown in The Last Dance documentary taking a trip to Las Vegas amid the Bulls' sixth and final championship campaign. Myers explained to ESPN's Nick Friedell in an interview published Saturday what he'd say if a player requested that type of time away from the team.
"It would be very hard for a player to even conceive of," he said. "You'd probably look at the player and say, 'This is a bad thing for you. Bad for us and for you.'"
Social media and the fact pretty much every cell phone has a camera has changed the dynamic of trying to get away from the spotlight, which is now everywhere. Those factors, combined with the 24-hour news cycle, makes Myers believe a Rodman-style break is a recipe for disaster.
"It worked," Myers told Friedell about Rodman's hiatus. "Everybody laughs that they let him go. What if they didn't?"
Former Bulls guard Steve Kerr, now the Golden State Warriors' head coach, said The Last Dance's depiction of Michael Jordan's life, where he was swarmed by cameras at his every move, would probably be a closer representation of what would happen if a player took a midseason break now.
"But Michael just couldn't go anywhere, and I think that's really being captured well," he told Friedell. "So I imagine it's similar in some regards to some of the stars today and how they feel being confined to their hotel rooms or to their homes."
When asked how social media would have impacted the 1990s Bulls, Kerr replied: "We would have felt it in a big way."
Jordan, who's been depicted in The Last Dance multiple times throughout the Bulls' dynasty as being mentally drained by the constant attention and pressure, is a prime example of the impact.