we ve all grown to love over the next decade. we ll have to see how all this plays out but some exciting games yesterday. then when you did talk about charles smith, i found that fascinating what you guys were talking about over the past half-hour. we ll all known charles to be one of the smarter players in the nba when he was playing. certainly a thoughtful guy, as you guys discovered upon talking to him. so it was a little bit surprising to see him take this trip and to see him trying to jump in in the interview that cnn had earlier this week with chris cuomo, jump in and defend dennis and defend the trip. he said a variety of things since that moment. sort of whether he regrets it or not, i heard him on the air just with you guys saying he doesn t have any regrets. i think this is a complicated situation for a lot of these guys. i had the opportunity to ask david stern when he was a guest on the situation room with wolf blitzer why a guy like charles smith would take this trip sin
that is no difference from a top ceo requiring from a company and being a consultant. if anybody has an issue with us being compensated, that s absurd. how much were you paid? that was in answer to why should i mention? it s none of anyone s business how much we got paid. i think it gets to motive though. there is no reason to answer that. it gets to motive. no, listen. a lot of people would ask, why would a person go to north korea as a gift to kim jong-un and the first half of the interview, the first 25 minutes we talked about cultural exchange and now we re talking about the check. victor, i already answered the question i think people were wondering who paid you. victor, we already answered the question. we already answered the question about the birthday date and all that. so we re beyond that. what i m saying to you is, why would anybody have an issue with us being compensated? now who compensated us? paddy power had pulled out so the trip was off and on.
use basketball as a bridge for cultural change. we accomplished that mission. we were in north korea with tourists, with other americans and our documentary film crew. all of us agree the trip was simply incredible. smith was at rodman s side and seemingly tried to calm him down as rodman spoke out about kenneth bae. smith says the visit was not about politics. it was about interacting with the north korean people. well, charles smith joins us now live from beijing. first, thanks for being on. you say you want to set the record straight, charles. what needs straightening? you have the floor. what have people misunderstood? well, i think everyone knows that the trip was based on sp t
were very unlike dennis. unlike him in what way? well, you know, he s been engaging. we saw what happened on the show. it was unlike him from my experience in dealing with him over the years. he definitely felt a lot of pressure. what people do not understand about him, he s had his hall of fame speech which stated that he s a terrible dad, he said that publicly several times and what dennis wants is he wants to he has a deep desire to do something good in a big way for his family, his kids, and so his kids can be proud of him. i felt for him. i felt for him on this trip because i saw the pressure mount. i saw him change and it was very
i m just explaining to you what i saw and what i ve experienced. look, while i was there, i had an experience with one of the people there as an african-american. i went to go shake their hand and the guy kind of winced and stuck his hand out and shook my hand and rubbed the back of my hand as if my skin color is going to go off. i later chatted with him for a while to find that i was the first african-american person s hand that he ever shook and the images of african-americans that they have, they are not that great. then the next day after we talk for a while, he came up to me and said he was sorry. you know, there s a lot that happened on that trip above and beyond playing a match and i m only sharing with you my experiences, good, bad or indifferent. it was just something that i experienced. well, one of the things that i know you had said when you came back was dennis rodman