The NBA is about to learn that China doesn’t negotiate with lying foreign devils:
The National Basketball Association won’t gag its personnel or apologise over a team executive’s tweet that ignited a firestorm in China, commissioner Adam Silver insisted Tuesday, standing firm despite a growing backlash that imperils the league’s lucrative Chinese following.
The tweet last Friday by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey supporting pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong has infuriated Chinese fans and led to broadcasters and sponsors severing ties with the NBA.
But Silver, speaking at a press conference in Japan where the Rockets are playing exhibition games this week, said the world’s top basketball league would continue to “support freedom of expression and certainly freedom of expression of the NBA community.”
“The NBA will not put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say or will not say on these issues. We simply could not operate that way,” Silver said in a statement before the press conference.
It won’t surprise me if the Chinese government waits for the commissioner to travel to China before cancelling both exhibition games at the last minute. Especially in light of how Silver’s claim that the NBA supports freedom of expression is absolutely and entirely false. The NBA doesn’t even hesitate to put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say when it comes to “racism”, “sexism”, “anti-semitism”, and “hate”.
“We believe that any comments that challenge national sovereignty and social stability are not within the scope of freedom of speech,” China Central Television (CCTV) said on its social media account.
Just call it “hate speech”. Then the NBA will have no choice but to ban it.