Dennis Rodman moves ahead with plans for basketball game between ex-NBA players and North Koreans to be held on Kim Jong-un's birthday by overseeing a tryout session.
Dennis Rodman, the former basketball star, held tryouts on Friday for a North Korean team to face a dozen NBA veterans in an exhibition game on leader Kim Jong-un's birthday next month.
The flamboyant Hall of Famer said plans for the January 8 game are moving ahead but some of the 12 Americans he wants are afraid to come.
"You know, they're still afraid to come here, but I'm just telling them, you know, don't be afraid man, it's all love, it's all love here," Rodman said after the tryouts at the Pyongyang Indoor Gymnasium.
"I understand what's going on with the political stuff, and I say, I don't go into that venture, I'm just doing one thing for these kids here, and for this country, and for my country, and for the world pretty much."
Rodman, who arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday, said he expects to announce the roster soon. He also said he is planning another game in June.
Rodman, wearing a pink button-down shirt and puffing on a cigar, watched as a couple dozen local players took to the basketball court for the tryouts. After the session, he told the players that each of the 12 he chooses will get two new pairs of tennis shoes.
Rodman and Kim have struck up an unlikely friendship since he travelled to the secretive state for the first time in February with the Harlem Globetrotters for an HBO series produced by New York-based VICE television.
He remains the highest-profile American to meet Kim since the leader inherited power from his father in 2011.
Rodman has mostly avoided politics in his dealings with the North and has avoided commenting on the North's human rights record or its continued detainment of American Kenneth Bae for allegedly committing anti-state crimes.
On Friday, he stressed that he hopes the game will be friendly, without political or nationalistic overtones.
He said the former NBA players will take on the North Koreans in the first half, but the teams will be mixed for the second half.
"It's not about win or loss. It's about one thing - unite two countries," Rodman said.
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