Foreign NBA fans stick to basketball as Lakers take on Nets in a China tweet storm
- A week after Morey’s post in support of Hong Kong protesters, Chinese flags still feature in the crowd and visitors focus their attention on LeBron James
- The two-game preseason trip ends with a 91-77 win for the Nets
While the Brooklyn Nets beat the Los Angeles Lakers 91-77 in front of a near-capacity crowd at the 18,000-seat Shenzhen Universiade Centre in the southern Chinese city, basketball took a back seat to political tensions in the fallout from a tweet.
Last weekend, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey created an international political firestorm when he tweeted his support for Hong Kong protesters, prompting the cancellation of a series of public events with the Nets and Lakers in Shanghai. The NBA also cancelled all press conferences and media access to their players, but the planned preseason games in Shanghai and Shenzhen went ahead.
The league initially called Morey’s tweet, which was quickly deleted, “regrettable” but NBA commissioner Adam Silver defended Morey’s right to “freedom of expression”, stirring up public anger in mainland China.
The two teams played under heavy security on Thursday night at the Mercedes-Benz Arena but the atmosphere was more relaxed in Shenzhen on Saturday, where a small contingent of foreign NBA fans came to watch.
Nevertheless, many fans were reluctant to have their photo taken or talk about anything other than sport.