Former Chicago Bull Dennis Rodman, who calls head of state Kim Jong-un a friend and “a very good guy,” told reporters in Beijing that he will help train the North Korean national basketball team ahead of a January exhibition game against a team of undisclosed former NBA players.

The pierced and tattooed “bad boy” Rodman makes an improbable friend for the North Korean leader, who last week had his uncle executed for a list of ‘anti-state’ charges, including gambling and drug use. Rodman’s trip is sponsored by Irish gambling site Paddy Power.

Both Paddy Power and the U.S. State Department stress that the former Bulls star is not officially representing the United States and his visit is strictly “basketball diplomacy.”

“Dennis Rodman is not a representative of the US government in his trip to North Korea,” US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement. “The focus really should be on the brutality of the North Korean regime he’s going to meet with.”

“This is nothing to do with high-level politics. It’s just sport,” said Paddy Power spokesman Rory Scott.

So far, Rodman’s North Korean trips have blurred the line between politics and sport.

Shortly after his first visit to North Korea in February–in which he sat next to Jong-un as they watched basketball matches–Rodman learned of detained American citizen Kenneth Bae and tweeted for his friend “Kim” to release Bae, who is currently serving a 15 year sentence at a North Korean hard labor camp.

However, upon Rodman’s second visit, he refused to address the issue.

“That’s not my job to ask about Kenneth Bae. Ask Obama about that. Ask Hillary Clinton,” Rodman said to reporters in September.

For now, Rodman seems focused on preparing his squads for the exhibition game, scheduled for January 8th, Kim Jong-un’s birthday.

“I can’t control what they do with their government, I can’t control what they say or how they do things here,” Rodman said in Pyongyang Thursday. “I’m just trying to come here as a sports figure and try to hope I can open the door for a lot of people in the country.”