As rumors of NBA Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman’s possible bankruptcy fill the news, recent court documents have revealed that his collection of heavy metal albums may be a major factor in his current financial crisis.  Rodman, who is believed to owe hundreds of thousands of dollars to his ex-wife, apparently averaged spending 1.3 million dollars a month purchasing metal records over the past three years.

Rodman’s mind-boggling collection takes up two-thirds of his Malibu estate.  It features a mountain of great metal treasures from original vinyl pressings of Iron Maiden’s “The Soundhouse Tapes” to numbered collectors editions of the first ten Judas Priest albums.

Some experts claim that he overvalued many items and paid ridiculous sums for them.  For example, Rodman spent 40,000 dollars on two copies of the recent Morbid Angel IIud Divinum Insanus Wooden Box Set.  The set, which included a red 180 gram copy of the record, a leather bound CD edition and two red candles, was valued at 199 dollars.  He also spent 130,000 dollars to purchase all six hundred and sixty six copies of the Marduk-Panzer Division Set, valued at 40 dollars per copy.

Rodman was duped into purchasing many “autographed” albums that were fraudulent.  For example, Rodman paid 10,000 dollars for a vinyl copy of Anthrax “Among The Living” that was signed by Johnny Belladonna, clearly not the singer from Anthrax.  He also paid 30,000 dollars for a copy of Danzig III:  How The Gods Kill.  The album was autographed by Glen Danzig, a misspelled version of the singer’s name (which has two n’s).

Rodman even purchased European versions of albums that did not actually exist.  He paid 800,000 for one of the supposed 12 copies of Dimmu Borgir’s “Morbid Fascist Iconoclast”, a demo that the band was believed to have recorded in 1989 (four years before they were actually formed).

In spite of the problems, Rodman’s collection is still a sight to behold.  Imagine a record store with everything from Anacrusis to Znowhite.  Rodman has entire rooms dedicated to genres and sub-genres.  His NWOBH metal room, complete with life-sized photos of Steve Harris and Rob Halford, is located right down the hallway from his thrash room, which features a stuffed and mounted fake heads of Chuck Billy, Steve “Zetro” Souza, and Nuclear Assault’s John Connelly on the wall.

For a brief stretch, he even had the real Paulo Jr. from Sepultura living in a caged room in near the garage.  Paulo was kidnapped by a group of Hamas agents and sold to Rodman for 150,000 dollars.  He managed to escape Rodman’s collection by gnawing through the bars when Rodman was on a weekend vacation in the Bahamas.

Rodman did, for a brief moment, consider selling his collection.  It is, after all, valued at over 8.7 million dollars and would set him up securely for the rest of his life.  But Rodman believed that selling his collection might make him a poser, so he quickly shelved the idea.  He has instead, considered selling one or both of his kidneys in order to get himself back on firm financial footing.