Following Houston Rockets’ Daryl Morey’s now-deleted tweet criticizing China’s repression in Hong Kong, the NBA has entered full-on submit-to-Xi-Jinping mode. Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai is leading the charge in kissing Xi’s ring, but other owners have joined him. China, they say, is just misunderstood. Hong Kong, they say, is a complex issue.

Let them keep talking. Because at this moment, you’re being helped to understand whom to ignore hereafter. In apparently demanding supportive public statements, China has just outed its useful idiots within the NBA.