NBA Season Kicks Off Amid China Standoff

The NBA season kicked off on Tuesday with wins for the Raptors and the Clippers. However commissioner Adam Silver still has a China sized mess to clean up.

Reports from Friday reveal that the NBA was asked to fire Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey following his deleted Tweet.

The Chinese government, though, deny making any such request. What we know for sure is that the league’s relationship with China and it’s companies is up in the air for now.

The NBA, and LeBron James in particular have come in for criticism as a result of this scandal. However, although apologetic toward China, the league has been remarkably steadfast in its’ support for Morey and freedom of expression.

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“Obviously, we made clear that we were being asked to fire him by the Chinese government, by the parties we dealt with, government and business,” Adam Silver said. 

“We said, ‘There’s no chance that’s happening. There’s no chance we’ll even discipline him.’”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang denied this allegation on Friday.

“The Chinese government never posed this requirement.” Geng said. 

He added that the NBA “has been working with China for a long while (and) it knows very well what it should say and do next.”

Ominous words from the Chinese government, who are accustomed to compliance. The problem is, according to Silver, the league doesn’t actually know what to do next.

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“I felt we had made enormous progress in terms of building cultural exchanges with the Chinese people,” Silver said.

“Again, I have regret that much of that was lost. And I’m not even sure where we’ll go from here.”

One thing is for sure – Silver will not compromise American values.

“We wanted to make an absolute clear statement that the values of the NBA, these American values — we are an American business — travel with us wherever we go, and one of those values is free expression,” Silver said. 

“We wanted to make sure everyone understood we were supporting free expression.”