“That makes me mad” – Dennis Rodman admitted the Bulls not getting a chance to win a seventh ring makes him angry originally appeared on Basketball Network.
It’s been more than two decades, but Dennis Rodman is probably still somewhere thinking about it.
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The Chicago Bulls walked away from the 1998 NBA Finals as champions for the sixth time in eight years. But what happened next — or what didn’t — continues to bother him.
“That makes me mad,” Rodman said on ESPN. “Can we rewind time? Because we had legs for 50 games, my God. Who really screwed this up?”
A painful memory
The NBA lockout shortened the following season to 50 games, and the Bulls core of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Rodman never got to suit up again. Jordan retired, Phil Jackson left, and the dynasty was dismantled.
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For Rodman, that stung. He believed the Bulls were built to dominate a shortened season. That window, he felt, was wide open.
Pippen, a seven-time All-Star and the secondary engine to arguably the greatest dynasty ever, didn’t disagree. He was on the same ESPN panel, and his answer was just as confident. The Bulls didn’t just have the experience. They had the drive and the toughness to win again.
“Probably 50–0,” Pippen responded when asked what their record would’ve been that year.
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He wasn’t joking.
“I would say at least two,” Pippen added, referencing how many more championships the Bulls could have won. “I would have loved to have challenged ourselves to a point where someone could defeat us.”
Would the dynasty have continued?
He acknowledged that the Utah Jazz, who pushed them to six games in both the 1997 and 1998 Finals, were the main contenders — but not necessarily a threat they couldn’t handle.
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“The teams that were giving us the most trouble — Utah Jazz means more in the Finals — they were just as old, if not older than us,” Pippen said. “Which gives me the sense that we probably could have ran a couple, three more years in terms of teams we could beat on the West Coast.”
The Bulls had just completed a 62-win season and secured their sixth championship in eight years. But their run ended on someone else’s terms.
Rodman never named names, but his frustration was clear. He believed that the group had more to give. Pippen thought so, too. Jordan never said he was ready to stop. Until he understood Jackson wasn’t coming back. They all had gas left in the tank.
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But they never got the chance to prove it.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Aug 7, 2025, where it first appeared.