Mr. Smith described his staff’s chats about the trip: “We said to ourselves, ‘Well, if we go through normal channels, it’s almost impossible to get in. But what if we put together a sort of exhibition basketball team to go over there?’ ” It has been called “basketball diplomacy” in the press since Mr. Rodman and company arrived — “and that was the actual idea,” Mr. Smith added.

Vice has a reputation for stunt journalism, having dispatched people in the past to war zones and hot spots overseas. On its main Web site over the weekend, an immersive article from India was sandwiched between a first-person essay titled “My Month Without Sex” and another essay about marijuana. The company also publishes magazines, records and YouTube videos, among other things.

For HBO, the newsmagazine partnership — announced last spring — was a leap, something Mr. Lombardo acknowledged in an interview. But “the whole idea of Vice is to take you places where other organizations are not going,” he said.

That’s North Korea in a nutshell, since access to the country is so tightly controlled. To get in, a liaison between North Korea and Vice suggested that the company donate basketball hoops and scoreboards to North Korean schools — a good-will gesture of sorts at the beginning of discussions about a visit.

Vice employees based in China did so. The company also contacted Mr. Rodman and the Globetrotters, and paid them an undisclosed amount to take the trip, which began last Tuesday. Mr. Smith, apparently unwelcome in the country because of his previous documentaries, has stayed in touch with his crew there through brief sessions on Skype.

Mr. Lombardo indicated that the apparent nuclear test by North Korea two weeks ago, widely condemned by the international community, did not change the producers’ thinking about the trip. He noted that Vice was an independent producer, like many of HBO’s partners.

“This was not, and Vice is not, about going in and doing the definitive story on North Korea and arms,” Mr. Lombardo said. “This was always intended to be, ‘You know what, let’s get our camera into an isolated country that we hear about, we read about and yet is hard for us to even picture.’ ”