Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai weighs in on Houston Rockets storm while James Harden says team ‘loves China’

The owner of the Brooklyn Nets NBA team, Joe Tsai, has weighed into the controversy ignited by Houston Rockets general manger Daryl Morey as he sought to explain the historical context of why Chinese basketball fans were upset with the general manager’s now-deleted tweet about Hong Kong protesters.

He wrote in a Facebook post on Monday that fans, like the rest of China’s 1.4 billion citizens, viewed territorial integrity and sovereignty as “non-negotiable” issues.

Morey created a storm when posting a tweet with an image saying “fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong”. The post was deleted and Morey backtracked, saying he now had more opportunity “to hear and consider other perspectives” and he “did not intend to cause any offence to Rockets fans and friends in China”.

One of the team’s star players, James Harden, also apologised on behalf of the Rockets, saying they loved playing in China.

But Tsai, who bought the Nets outright in a US$2.35 billion deal in September, said as a governor of one of the 30 NBA teams, and a Chinese who had spent a good part of his professional life in China, he needed to speak up. In his capacity as the owner of Brooklyn Nets, Tsai is also a governor of the NBA board.

In his post, which he described as an open letter to NBA fans around the world, Tsai – a co-founder of Alibaba which owns the South China Morning Post – laid out a historical perspective to explain why hundreds of millions of fans in China were upset with Morey, noting that all Chinese citizens stand united when it came to territorial integrity given their strong sense of shame and anger from their country’s history of foreign occupation.

“A student of history will understand that the Chinese psyche has heavy baggage when it comes to any threat, foreign or domestic, to carve up Chinese territories.,” he said.

He also argued that certain topics are “third rail” issues in certain countries, adding that support for separatist movements in China was one such issue.

“The one thing that is terribly misunderstood, and often ignored, by the western press and those critical of China is that 1.4 billion Chinese citizens stand united when it comes to the territorial integrity of China and the country’s sovereignty over her homeland,” he wrote.

“By now I hope you can begin to understand why the Daryl Morey tweet is so damaging to the relationship with our fans in China. I don’t know Daryl personally. I am sure he is a fine NBA general manager, and I will take at face value his subsequent apology that he was not as well informed as he should have been. But the hurt that this incident has caused will take a long time to repair.

“I hope to help the League to move on from this incident. I will continue to be an outspoken NBA Governor on issues that are important to China. I ask that our Chinese fans keep the faith in what the NBA and basketball can do to unite people from all over the world,” his statement concluded.

In a bid to calm the storm, Harden also apologised on Monday. Speaking in Tokyo, where the team is playing two exhibition matches this week, Harden distanced himself from the controversy raging in the NBA’s biggest market outside the US.

“We apologise. We love China,” Harden said, standing alongside fellow Rockets guard Russell Westbrook.

“We love playing there. Both of us, we go there once or twice a year. They show us most support so we appreciate them.”

Earlier, the NBA issued a statement expressing regret over Morey’s comments.

“While Daryl has made it clear that his tweet does not represent the Rockets or the NBA, the values of the league support individuals’ educating themselves and sharing their views on matters important to them,” said the statement issued by chief communications officer Mike Bass.

But a Chinese-language version of the statement posted on Weibo went further, saying the NBA was “deeply disappointed by the inappropriate remarks”.

The NBA later denied any discrepancy between the two statements.

“We have seen various interpretations of the translation of the Chinese version, but our statement in English is the league’s official statement,” Sheila Rasu, a publicist for NBA Asia, said in an email statement.

The latest developments were met with mixed response on Monday from different quarters.

In the US, a number of politicians criticised the NBA for kowtowing to pressure from Beijing, but China’s state media continued to criticise Morey and his team for “failing to recognise the mistakes” in spite of the apologies.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse