One might think that the wickedly fluid situation in NK would give Mr. Rodman and the former NBA players pause for reflection
While some Freepers are in a position to know nonpublic information, most of us can only speculate.
To avoid any misunderstandings, what follows is merely my personal guess, though it's based on years of watching North Korea. I have no inside information whatsoever on this, so if I'm right, it's simply putting two and two together.
My guess is that Dennis Rodman knows exactly what he is doing, has received extensive briefings, and is reporting back what he has seen and heard. And I suspect Rodman’s connection with Kim Jong-eun goes back much farther than is publicly known.
Kim Jong-eun’s fascination with basketball has been known for a very long time. I think our State Department and foreign intelligence services, as well as those of South Korea, have been considering potential ways to use that connection since it provided a way to exploit the interest of a member of the North Korean ruling family in an aspect of Western culture.
If they weren't doing that, they were stupid not to do so. This was an obvious exploit opportunity, particularly when Kim Jong-eun was not considered to be in the line of succession but had influence with his father and brothers.
Somebody with more time on their hands than I have might like to look into what happened a number of years ago when a star North Korean basketball player wanted to come to the United States to play basketball. Again, I do not think this is the first time our intelligence agencies have considered basketball diplomacy.