Doug Christie -- one of the players on Dennis Rodman's '14 basketball trip to North Korea -- says there's NO WAY he'd return ... unless LeBron James was involved.
Christie -- along with Kenny Anderson, Vin Baker and other ex-NBA stars -- famously traveled to Pyongyang to play an exhibition game for Kim Jong-un. They called it "Basketball diplomacy."
But, Christie tells us the trip wasn't exactly peaches and cream -- saying, "I kissed the ground when I got back.