Dennis Rodman's trips to North Korea have officially gone from a cute novelty to a horrifying sideshow.
Dennis Rodman and his hand-picked Rodman All-Stars, in North Korea to play an exhibition match against a North Korean team, gave an interview to CNN's Chris Cuomo overnight that quickly went south.
When Cuomo asked Rodman if he planned to use his close relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to petition for the release of detained American Kenneth Bae (a Korean-American US citizen and father of three who was arrested in November 12 for "hostile acts" and sentenced to 15 years in a labour camp), Rodman probably should have just stuck to the script. A simple "I'm here for basketball, not politics" would have defused the tension quickly.
Dennis Rodman does not stick to the script. Instead, to the obvious chagrin of his teammates, he says this:
"Do you understand what Kenneth Bae did?" barks Rodman, who clearly has no idea what Kenneth Bae did. When teammate Charles D Smith tries to avoid a PR disaster calm him down, Rodman waves him off: "Let me do this... I don't give a rat's ass what the hell you think! Look at the guys right here. You are the guy behind the mic... and we are the guys here doing our thing."
Rodman then tries to take the high ground by reminding Cuomo that he's the one who has to "go back to America and take the abuse", as if Cuomo also chose to play exhibition basketball matches for a bloodthirsty dictator and is somehow not taking any abuse for it.
Rodman's team, which also includes retired stars Kenny Anderson, Vin Baker, Doug Christie, Sleepy Floyd, Craig Hodges, and Clifford 'Uncle Cliffy' Robinson, has not been given the approval of the National Basketball Retired Players Association (NBRPA).
"Under the right circumstances basketball can serve as a bridge to bring communities together," said NBRPA chairman Otis Birdsong, "but these are not the right circumstances. Standing alongside our partners at the NBA, we do not condone the basketball activities to be conducted in North Korea this week."
NBA commissioner David Stern doesn't support the trip either, but he's well past being surprised by anything Dennis Rodman does. "Dennis will be Dennis," Stern told CNN's Wolff Blitzer. "We did not sanction this. This is not part of us. We wouldn't do such a thing without collaborating with the US State Department."
Stern believes Rodman and his team have been "a little bit blinded by a flash of North Korean money", but cautioned that they might be doing all this for nothing, because North Korea is "the leader in producing counterfeit money."
