Dennis Rodman boldly declares 1999 NBA champion if Bulls didn’t break up

Following ESPN's broadcast of the first two episodes of the docu-series “The Last Dance,” chronicling the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls season, leading to their sixth NBA championship in eight years, former Bulls power forward Dennis Rodman commented that Chicago would have “easily” won the 1999 title if the team didn't break up in the summer following their 1998 chip.

“It was just sad in fact that we could have come back and won a fourth championship very easily,” Rodman said on ESPN daytime talk show program “First Take,” via San Antonio NBC affiliate WOIA.

Here's Dennis Rodman saying had the 98 Bulls stayed together, they would have gone on to the 99 Finals and win "easily", Spurs fans…. #nba #gospursgo #BullsNation 👇👇👇 pic.twitter.com/vsJc3TrSOv

— JeffGSpursKENS5 (@JeffGSpursZone) April 20, 2020

“The Last Dance” aired its first two episodes on Sunday, April 19 to hungry sports fans eager to watch new (if you call reexamining a championship team from 22 years ago “new”) content while the sports world is on hold due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Sunday saw ESPN focus on the Bulls' two top stars, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, while Hall of Fame power forward Rodman, who previously won back-to-back titles with the Detroit Pistons in 1989-90, is supposedly the focus of episode three next Sunday.

After the championship run capping three straight titles in 1997-98, Rodman signed with the Los Angeles Lakers during the lockout 1999 season and afterwards signed with the Dallas Mavericks. That summer before the lockout also saw Jordan retire for the second of three times, head coach Phil Jackson step down and join the Shaquille O'Neal Lakers, and Pippen was traded to the Houston Rockets. Pippen and his contract with the Bulls were the source of much scrutiny in episode two due to the extremely low salary the All-Star agreed to years before.

Despite Rodman's claim of a fourth straight championship for the Bulls in 1999 being in the cards, there's no reason to believe any of it would happen if Jordan wasn't around.