When Dennis Rodman played for Brighton Bears: ‘We’re in England. It’s another world’

Twenty years ago, five-time NBA champion Dennis Rodman entered the “Celebrity Big Brother” house in England wearing shades and a cap. He made himself a household name in the U.K. as he spent the next 21 days on the reality television programme puffing cigars, working out in the gym, flirting with housemates and being at the centre of countless headlines in British tabloid newspapers.

Watching, along with millions of others, was Nick Nurse, now the Philadelphia 76ers head coach. In 2006, he was the owner of Brighton Bears, an unheralded English south-coast team that played in the British Basketball League (BBL), then the U.K.’s top division.

One day, Nurse received a call suggesting he should try to sign the then-44-year-old Rodman, a former Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons star. So began one of the unlikeliest deals in basketball.

Nurse began negotiating with Rodman’s representatives, who had expressed that he would be available, and when the NBA Hall of Famer left the show in a double eviction, finishing seventh, he headed 67 miles south of London to the English coast days later, sparking a short-lived frenzy in a city which, 20 years ago, was known more for its nightlife than its sports teams.

Phil Waghorn was Brighton Bears’ interim head coach at the time. “I coached a game in Leicester, which was the longest game in British basketball history. It went to five overtimes, and we won, but I didn’t do any interviews afterwards,” Waghorn told The Athletic. “When Dennis came to play, I joked that I was doing interviews with countries I hadn’t even heard of.”

From arriving to his first game in a white limousine 30 minutes late to chasing an NBA return and spending his Brighton game-day earnings at a London nightclub, this is the story of how, for three games, Rodman brought British basketball out of the shadows.

Rodman left “Big Brother” — where celebrities were isolated in a house and recorded 24/7 — on Wednesday, Jan. 25. Three days later, he was playing for the Bears.

He had achieved greatness on the court — a three-peat with Michael Jordan and the Bulls, two Defensive Player of the Year awards and seven consecutive rebound titles — but had also garnered celebrity status for his relationship with stars such as Madonna and Carmen Electra and, later, a friendship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

In previous interviews, Nurse described Rodman’s time at Brighton as “wild,” recalling sold-out arenas and over-requested press credentials for a team that had previously generated little attention. According to Nurse in his 2020 book “Rapture,” Rodman was paid around £25,000 ($33,673) per game and had initially agreed to a one-game deal with an option to extend.

Nurse told reporters at the time that Rodman, though he had been seen smoking “all week long” on “Big Brother,” was “very serious” about playing for Brighton and had a clause in his contract that allowed him to sign with an NBA team if there was any interest.

The scale of Rodman’s first game was alien to British basketball. The Bears played their home games at two venues: the 3,000-capacity Brighton Centre, a beachfront venue that once hosted the Jacksons, Queen and Bob Marley and the Wailers, and at The Triangle, a smaller arena in the nearby town of Burgess Hill.

Given that Chicago’s United Center holds around 20,000 fans, this was a small fry for Rodman. The capacity of some college basketball arenas exceeds 20,000, and the largest high school arena in New Castle, Ind., holds more than 9,000, making it the equivalent of playing in a small-town high school basketball gym.

It was The Triangle — a recreation center with a swimming pool and waterslides, which was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999 and held fewer than 2,000 people — that hosted Rodman’s opening game against the Guildford Heat, a team which won the BBL championship in the 2006-07 season but has since folded. It was billed as a battle for sixth place in the 11-team championship, with the top eight progressing to the playoffs.

“You’re getting messages from people you haven’t spoken to for years asking for tickets,” Daniel Hildreth, who played forward for the Bears, told The Athletic. One of Hildreth’s guests was his son, Cameron, who now plays for the Indiana Pacers G League team.

“I’m pretty sure health and safety were out the window on that day. I had guests who didn’t have seats and had to stand in the alleyways of the bleachers just so they could be there.

“I knew a bunch of the Guildford Heat guys. They were getting a bit agitated, like, ‘We’re in a professional league. Why is this a bit of a circus?’”

Waghorn had taken over head coaching duties in the months leading up to the game after Nurse had undergone a throat operation. “About a week before, I’d gone to watch Alexander O’Neal, a singer from the ’80s,” Waghorn recalled. “I get out onto the court, and he’s (O’Neal) sitting on the team bench because Nick sold the team bench to the highest bidder. There was nowhere else to sit in the place.”

The tipoff for the anticipated game was delayed by 30 minutes after Rodman arrived late in a white limousine. “When he got there, it probably took him 15 minutes to walk 15 steps because so many people were out there waiting for him and taking pictures,” Bulls fan Jerry Williams, another member of the Bears who played with Rodman, said. 

Dennis Rodman runs out for his first game for the Brighton Bears on Jan. 28, 2006. (Chris Ison / PA Images via Getty Images)

Waghorn quickly had to accommodate his new star after his late arrival.

“Dennis actually showered before the game,” Waghorn said. “I walked him down to the changing rooms, and we walked past the arena. He says to me, ‘Is it a high school game?’ I said to Dennis, ‘This is what it’s like; we’re playing in England, mate. It’s another world.’

“Then, I had to rifle through the opposition’s players’ bags to get him some shower gel.”

With the sold-out crowd left waiting, Rodman eventually made his way out to the middle of the court and began stretching while his teammates did layup lines. He only got one shot up before tipoff, Hildreth said.

Waghorn boldly didn’t include Rodman in the starting five, but he soon subbed in for Hildreth.

“I was conscious of a few things. I didn’t want to be the coach that coached Dennis Rodman and lost the game,” Waghorn said. “And then, I was also conscious of trying to get all the guys on court to have some sort of memory of playing with him.”

Rodman never attended practice sessions with the Bears, but they played with the triangle offense, a fluid style of play made famous by the Bulls when Rodman was coached by Phil Jackson.

“The first possession, he catches the ball in the post and throws an over-the-head back pass to a cutting player who wasn’t ready for the ball, and it flew straight out of bounds,” Hildreth said. “It was the perfect pass, but we thought, ‘How does he know our offense better than we do?’”

Another memorable moment was Rodman flying into the front row to try and save the ball from going out of bounds, Waghorn recalled. Local media outlet The Argus led with the headline “Dennis does the dirty work.”

The game went down to the wire, and in the clutch, Rodman missed an ill-advised 3-pointer and two free throws that would have iced the game. Though he finished with just four points, the Bears had secured a 91-88 win. The result, however, was later changed to a 20-0 Guildford victory as the Bears were punished by the league for fielding four import players when rules only allowed for three.

“One (NBA) club have been in touch with us for a tape,” Nurse told the media after Rodman’s first game. “And I believe if Dennis wanted to get back in the NBA, he could do it. If a team needed somebody to take some rebounds and help sell some tickets, he would do a good job.”

The Bears reached an agreement for Rodman make two further appearances and organized back-to-back games in February. In the meantime, he held a book signing at Brighton’s shopping centre for his book, “I Should Be Dead By Now.”

His second game was at the Brighton Centre against the Newcastle Eagles on Feb. 14 in front of 3,000 fans. Based on stats alone, this was the 6-foot-7 American’s most impressive game in the British league, recording 23 rebounds. It was as if he knew the game was available to watch via pay-per-view on the British channel ITV.

“The man could still rebound his butt off. It’s just a gift that he has,” Williams said. “It’s something he has grown accustomed to doing, and he was very good at it even at his age.”

Newcastle beat the Bears 85-75, but Rodman impressed his head coach. “Some screens that he set, our guys got easy drives to the basket. I’d never seen it on our team or probably in England, where suddenly people were just wide open,” Waghorn said.

Dennis Rodman played three games for Brighton Bears in 2006. (Ben Stansall /AFP via Getty Images)

The next day, his third and final appearance for the Bears was against the London Towers, at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, a game originally meant to be against the Leicester Riders but was rescheduled so Rodman could feature in the nation’s capital.

Nursing a knee problem, he played 26 minutes, posting four points, nine rebounds, two assists and two steals in a 103-84 victory, ensuring his British adventure ended with a win. Rodman may not have been in his prime, but he provided many with three unforgettable games.

After the game, Rodman and his teammates celebrated at Chinawhite, a nightclub in central London which at the time was regularly frequented by celebrities — even hosting Hugh Hefner’s 75th birthday party.

Williams said he was astonished when Rodman showed him a bill for £27,500 ($36,930) at the end of the night.

Despite Rodman’s appearances, the Bears folded at the end of the season. In his book, Nurse writes about struggling to keep the team afloat, of “sleepless nights” as he struggled to pay staff. He wrote that he felt guilty until he saw the support he gained from British fans after winning the NBA championship with the Toronto Raptors in 2019, writing, “It gave me hope that they would remember the good times and forget about how it ended.”

“Rodmania” proved British basketball could attract an audience.

“It goes to show that with marketing and exposure, you can draw attention to the game,” Hildreth said. “I think some people thought it made a mockery of the league, but I look at it and say no publicity is bad publicity. For me personally, it was awesome because I played with Dennis Rodman.”

Williams, too, will always remember playing with a player he described as a rock star.

“I coach kids and tell them I played with Rodman all the time, and they don’t believe me, so I show them the pictures of us in the locker room,” he said. “It’s a story that sticks around the family for a long time.”