Riley Dulin - Sports Editor
With the NBA season having recently begun, one major global issue has dominated conversation in both the news and sports worlds: the NBA vs. China. This issue began when Rockets’ GM Daryl Morey backed Hong Kong protesters in a tweet, and China took offense to it, hurting the overall relationship between the country and the NBA. Further exacerbating the issue, star LeBron James sounded off on the issue, saying that Morey was “misinformed” on the topic.
The protests in Hong Kong are due to the fact that China introduced a new law that forces people in Hong Kong to be sent back to China to Beijing to be tried in court. To me, this is a downright egregious proposal, as the people of Hong Kong have their own currency, constitution, democracy, and most even identify with Hong Kong when it comes to nationality. While this proposal has since been scrapped, residents of Hong Kong now want full sovereignty over the communist nation.
LeBron James is the most iconic basketball player in America right now. One might think, then, that most Americans would agree with the star’s sentiments, right? Well, according to a recent Fox Business poll, 28% of Americans believe LeBron was sincere when making these remarks (Barrabi). Also, only 9% think that Morey deserves to be fired for his comments (Barrabi). Most telling of all, however, is that 69% of Americans believe that China plays too large of an influence in the NBA as a whole (Barrabi). I believe that the American people are right in siding with Morey in this case. Overall, I believe that Morey’s comments are not out-of-line, and the opinion of one NBA general manager should not dictate the relationship between the two global superpowers.
CJ Bonifer - Photography Manager
Following Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey’s pro-Hong Kong tweets, the China-NBA relationship took a turn for the worse when the Chinese government decided to cut ties with the NBA. Many people were outraged at the NBA for standing by the Chinese, but what many critics do not understand is that this entire situation is about geopolitics, and at the end of the day the NBA will do what is best for their bottom line.
China owns one of the keys to global media domination, and by having that key you get the rights to expand your influence to over one billion people. In the eyes of any media organization, what’s right and wrong soon becomes an afterthought, as the true desire of the organization becomes making as much money as possible and expanding your influence in the world. By no means is this the right thing to do from a moral standpoint, but in the NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the NBA board of directors’ eyes, staying silent on the Honk Kong protests is the best strategy to maintain healthy relations with the Chinese, who are avid consumers of NBA games.
At the end of the day, China controls the US media and anything else that comes or goes from the nation. The US and China are currently in a soft power chess match that will only end with one side winning.