BFF Kim

As I said it before I’ll say it again, Dennis Rodman is weird like really weird. I’ve never understood why someone would want to marry themselves, but hey that’s Rodman. I have been watching the new documentary on the 90s Bulls titled “The Last Dance”. Having known that Dennis was a character I did not expect much to surprise me in this documentary, I was wrong. This man asked for a 48-hour vacation to Las Vegas in the middle of the 1996 regular season. How is that even possible? The cruel thing about it is he stayed way longer than he was supposed to. Almost 72 hours longer. Guess who showed up to pick the talented rebounder and defensive player up and bring him back to Chicago. If you guess the GOAT himself, Michael Jordan, then you were very correct. Apparently, MJ and Scottie Pippen went to the hotel where Rodman was staying with then-girlfriend Carmen Electra, woke him up and put him on the next flight back to Chi-Town. The funniest part of that little story, in my opinion, is that Carmen Electra hid from Jordan because she did not want him mad at her for keeping Dennis away for so long. In hindsight, I believe Dennis’s little vacation worked for them because they capped that season off with the Bulls’ 6th title and 2nd 3-peat. Now for the story, I really want to tell. This story is about Dennis Rodman of course, but it is also about his unlikely friendship with the supreme leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un.

As crazy as this may sound… this is pretty insane if you ask me. Here is one of the best basketball players all-time and he is sitting with arguably one of the most dangerous men, against the United States, in the world. Turns out Kim is a huge basketball fan and grew up watching the 1990s Bulls teams. In 2011 Kim took over after his father’s death, and then in 2013, Rodman was invited to North Korea. As it turns out, when Rodman went to North Korea he traveled with three other basketball players from the Harlem Globetrotters and also a group of journalists from VICE. This trip had many human rights activists criticizing Rodman for apparently hugging the supreme leader and quote him saying to Kim “You have a friend for life.” After this initial trip, the two’s friendship continued to blossom culminating in Rodman sing “Happy Birthday” to Kim on the basketball court in 2014. Many trips between 2013 and 2016 saw their friendship grow, and even at one point, Rodman became a sort of activist to get the U.S. and North Korea seeing eye-to-eye.

As crazy as this may sound and this sounds pretty insane if you ask me Rodman was, in the midst of all this, creating a relationship between both countries. Here is one of the best basketball players all-time and he is sitting with arguably one of the most dangerous men, against the United States, in the world. Turns out Kim is a huge basketball fan and grew up watching the 1990s Bulls teams. In 2011 Kim took over after his father’s death, and then in 2013, Rodman was invited to North Korea. As it turns out, when Rodman went to North Korea he traveled with three other basketball players from the Harlem Globetrotters and also a group of journalists from VICE. This trip had many human rights activists criticizing Rodman for apparently hugging the supreme leader and quote him saying to Kim “You have a friend for life.” After this initial trip, the two’s friendship continued to blossom culminating in Rodman sing “Happy Birthday” to Kim on the basketball court in 2014. Many trips between 2013 and 2016 saw their friendship grow, and even at one point, Rodman became a sort of activist to get the U.S. and North Korea seeing eye-to-eye.

The last little story from these twos’ weird and almost surreal relationship that I want to share comes from 2017, a year before the presidential summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un. Rodman gifted Donald Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal” to Kim. I had not known this but Rodman even endorsed Trump saying in a tweet, “We’ve got the greatest negotiator of all time @realDonaldTrump to show the world how it’s done”. This came as a surprise to me because I always believed that the U.S. and North Korea hated each other. Could it have been that avocation coming from one of the NBA’s most controversial players that finally brought these two countries together after so many years? I believe Rodman thinks so, however, this relationship that he with a very powerful person is not even scratching the surface of the mind of Dennis Rodman.

I hope you enjoyed this blog and thank you for reading towards the end. Please leave a comment on an unlikely pair that you have heard of. See y’all next time, James.