By Kelly Dwyer
Yahoo Sports
As it was 25 years ago when the Detroit Pistons drafted him out of a small college in Oklahoma, Dennis Rodman didn't come to Detroit this week as much of a basketball player.
He had spent a good portion of the week doing what Dennis Rodman does now -- making personal appearances at product releases, in casinos, surrounded by filtered libations, flashing lights and flirting lasses. Prior to Friday's ceremony to retire his No. 10, Rodman took part in a pregame news conference sporting a hat with a clothing manufacturer's logo prominently featured. He's a pro at this now, to use one of his favorite words, "bro."
Something changed on Friday, though. Perhaps it was the shot of a young Rodman on the marquee outside the Palace at Auburn Hills, unfettered by jewelry or skin-and-ink artistry. Maybe it was the Palace setting itself -- the building was rightfully hailed as years ahead of its time when it debuted in 1988, but now even some of its gaudier elements seem quite tame. Perhaps it was the nostalgia, which has a way of both humbling and enervating even the person that's being paid tribute to. For whatever reason, as it was 25 years ago, the Detroit Pistons turned Dennis Rodman into a basketball player again on Friday night.
Detroit couldn't help it. They'd seen from afar the tattooed Rodman, the guy with the crazy hair and outlandish (for the 1990s, at least) style who courted Madonna and posed nude on the cover of his bestselling books as he played for the Spurs and Bulls. But Detroit never knew that guy. No, they knew the shy and sensitive Rodman that sheepishly made his way onto the Pistons roster as a 25-year-old rookie in 1986.
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