Maybe all that talk about communication for winning teams might be a tad overrated.
Dennis Rodman related a of which he was a member in the mid 1990s.
It seems that Rodman never had a conversation with either Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen during his time with the Bulls.
Rodman tells Yahoo.com interviewer Graham Bensinger why he never talked to his teammates and why he believes it helped him during his Hall of Fame career.
BENSINGER: “Your then teammate when you were with the Bulls, Scottie Pippen, was quoted as saying “I’ve never had a conversation with Dennis. I’ve never had” a conversation with Dennis in my life, so I don’t think it’s anything new.” Why not speak to your teammates then?
RODMAN:” Well, I think it was important for me to go in there and win. I don’t have a job to speak to people. My job is to collate and understand how people work and make people believe in the fact that [I] belong there. Talking to people will come. Relating to people will come. If they see you performing and doing your job and being with the group, that’s all I want. Me and Scottie — we’re cool today. We’re a little older, a little wiser. We’re cool today. And me and Scottie never had a conversation. Me and Scottie and Michael never had a conversation in three years in Chicago. Only time we had a conversation was on the court, and that was it.”
Those Bulls teams won three consecutive championships. with records of 72-9, 69-13 and 62-20. And yet, there was no communication or even conversation away from the court from some of their key players.
All of those egos in one room must have made for a unique coaching job for Phil Jackson — even with all of the basketball talent on the team.