NBA coaches and players have a reputation for being socially conscious activists who share their takes on everything from gun control, to immigration, to the Trump White House, to race relations. This has won them plenty of plaudits and favorable press from a captivated and grateful news media.
But the NBA’s subservience to its Chinese corporate overlords, which has spilled into public view this week, is doing an amazing job of revealing just how devoted some of these allegedly uncompromising activists are to the cause of justice. As it turns out, for many of these supposedly brave advocates for social change, their dedication to “woke” culture ends exactly where their paychecks begin.
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, for example, was asked this week for comment on the NBA siding with communist China against Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey, who said in a since-deleted tweet, “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.”
This is Curry’s response:
This situation — is a huge weight and gravity to it — and there remain some things that need to be sorted out. I just don’t know enough about Chinese history and how that’s influenced modern society today in that interaction to speak on it. So that’s just where we’re at. It’s not going away. So we’ll come back to it.
Look, you cannot expect Curry to have an answer on something so difficult as the Hong Kong demonstrators’ fight against Chinese oppression. The issue is just so dense, you see, with such an incredibly rich and complicated history. Anyway, speaking of not being able to comment on difficult and complex issues, enjoy these real Curry-related headlines:
Elsewhere, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who enjoys a reputation for being the coach who “will not stick to sports,” similarly dodged the question this week when he was asked for his thoughts on the Hong Kong-NBA debacle. Kerr, for whom “no topic seems off limits” and “no question is too dangerous,” had this to say:
What I’ve found is that it’s easy to speak on issues that I’m passionate about that I feel like I’m well-versed on and I’ve found that it makes the most sense to stick to topics that fall in that category. So I try to keep my comments to those things and so it’s not difficult. It’s more I’m just trying to learn.
My brother-in-law is actually a Chinese history professor and I emailed him today to tell me what I should be learning about all this and what’s happening and so I’m trying to learn just like everybody else.
Did he and Curry get their response from the same place? Well, probably. Aside from the brother-in-law part.
There is also San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who prides himself on being an outspoken social justice activist, particularly when it involves the Trump White House. This is what he had to say this week about China, the NBA, and Hong Kong:
Um, but the question was about China.
Anyway, Popovich continued:
But he sided with the principles that we all hold dearly, or most of us did until the last three years. I’m thrilled with what he said. The courage and leadership displayed is off the charts by comparison.
Amazing. He managed to dodge the question completely while also getting in a sideways jab at President Trump. That is some real courage there.
Lastly, there are the players like the Houston Rockets’ James Harden, who are not known for being outspoken activists but felt the need anyway to kiss up to China after Morey’s tweet.
“We apologize. You know, we love China. We love playing there,” Harden said Monday. “They show us the most important love.”
Harden, by the way, is the same player who declined Wednesday to respond to an excellent question from CNN’s Christina Macfarlane, who asked simply if he feels differently about the NBA’s reputation for being outspoken given its timorous handling of the Hong Kong matter.
Journalist gets quickly shut down when she asked James Harden, Russell Westbrook if they would refrain from speaking out on politics/social justice after China debacle… pic.twitter.com/VkXSWo0N0s
— gifdsports (@gifdsports) October 10, 2019
Oh, that is funny. He has an opinion on the matter only when it benefits China, a country in which the NBA has a significant financial investment. Funny how that works.
I refuse to believe these men have never seen the infamous 1989 Tiananmen Square Tank Man photo or that they do not know its backstory. I refuse to believe that they have not by now performed at least a cursory Google search explaining the Hong Kong protests. I refuse to believe that they have not at least heard of the recent South Park episode that got the satirical television show banned in China.
It is possible these men are actually as ignorant as they are pretending to be, but it is unlikely.
The more likely thing here is that they are cowards, plain and simple. They talk a big game about social justice. They will opine at length about topics as complicated and fraught as gun control and immigration as long as it wins them praise in the domestic press. But, man, please do not ask them anything that could jeopardize their paychecks or the NBA’s expansion into China.
They’re brave, just not that brave.
