When it comes to free speech that could possibly irk its fans, the NBA is massively hypocritical.
The league proved this over the weekend when they put out a statement apologizing after Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey sent out a tweet in support of the Hong Kong demonstrations amid the political unrest there.
The image tweeted by Morey simply said, “Fight for Freedom. Stand With Hong Kong.”
Apparently, this offended some people.
The Chinese Basketball Association (headed by Rockets legend Yao Ming) was so upset the league decided to cut ties with the Rockets. The Chinese government will not air any of the team’s games on state-run media.
The tweet, deleted shortly after it went out, immediately put the league in damage-control mode. The English version of the NBA’s statement reads:
The NBA’s response to Morey’s innocuous statement is pathetic kowtowing to an evil country. Sure, it’s not good business to mix politics and sports, but that’s not the standard the NBA holds domestically for its slew of controversial leftists, so why should it be any different here?
The league is loaded with players and coaches who have made statements that could easily offend conservatives, and not just because they might disagree.
The NBA did not issue an apology when LeBron James said President Trump “doesn’t give a f—” about Americans or when San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich called Trump a “soulless coward”. When LeBron campaigned with the deeply unpopular Hillary Clinton, whose negligence got four Americans killed in Benghazi, the NBA didn’t apologize. They didn’t care about alienating Trump supporters despite the president winning 30 of the country’s 50 states in the 2016 election.
The NBA was silent when LeBron and Popovich showed support for failed Texas Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke, whose extreme stances on gun confiscation and abortion of viable babies could be considered quite repugnant.
When the Golden State Warriors bucked a dumb tradition and visited former President Barack Obama instead of the Trump White House, making a clear political statement, the NBA did not reprimand them. Although presidential White House visits are pointless and divisive, the same could be said about cozying up to Obama.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr was not reprimanded for wearing a pro gun-control shirt to the arena last season reading “vote for our lives”, even though there are certainly responsible gun owners who watch basketball.
But expressing support for Hong Kong was a step too far, apparently. Opposing a country with forced abortions, organ harvesting, sweatshop labor, 1 million Muslims in concentration camps, a “social credit score” tracking all of its citizens and no democratic elections for president is what makes the NBA queasy.
Either players, coaches, general managers, and owners should be able to be free to say what they want without being forced to apologize or the NBA should have a strict no-politics policy. The NBA can make that decision on their own, but it should at least be consistent.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a freelance writer who has been published with USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Federalist, and a number of other media outlets.
