I’m nothing more than a sports slave.

Taken at face value, Rodman’s line frames elite professional athletics as a form of commodified labor: the athlete’s body and persona are owned, managed, and consumed by teams, leagues, sponsors, and media. The blunt self-description (“slave”) emphasizes loss of autonomy—constant surveillance, contractual control, and public entitlement to the athlete’s time and identity. In Rodman’s case, the phrasing also resonates with his long-running conflict with authority and with the way his notoriety was simultaneously profitable and constraining. The quote’s force lies in its provocation: it challenges the glamour narrative of sports stardom by foregrounding exploitation and the psychological cost of being treated as an entertainment product.