Dennis Rodman is once again back in North Korea — this time, his trip is sponsored by the Irish online gambling site Paddy Power — to train North Korean basketball players and hold tryouts for an exhibition match next month against retired NBAers. Rodman, wearing typical basketball attire of a pink dress shirt and a scarf, told the AP that he is, in fact, aware of all the “political stuff” going on in North Korea, but he’s “just doing one thing for these kids here, and for this country, and for my country, and for the world pretty much.” Pretty much.
As for those unnamed, presumably financially strapped former NBA players who are supposed to participate in the exhibition game on January 8, Rodman acknowledged that some of them are kind of nervous about playing in a country with a tendency to, you know, imprison or execute anyone who displeases its mercurial boy-king.
“You know, they’re still afraid to come here,” Rodman says, “but I’m just telling them, you know, don’t be afraid man, it’s all love, it’s all love here.” Go ahead and try to find any aspect of life in North Korea that’s not bursting with pure, unadulterated love. You can’t.
