Hongkongers burn LeBron James jerseys as NBA’s China controversy festers
- The Los Angeles Lakers star reignited the row after returning home and saying he thought Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey was ‘uneducated’
- Protesters at the Southorn Playground were seen burning James’ jerseys during a rally on Tuesday night
If the NBA was hoping its crisis with the Chinese government was going to die down after two of its teams – the Brooklyn Nets and the Los Angeles Lakers – returned home on Sunday from their preseason tour of mainland China, they will be deeply disappointed.
Morey tweeted his support for Hong Kong protesters more than a week ago, a tweet he quickly deleted, then apologised for. The NBA initially called the tweet “regrettable”. However then commissioner Adam Silver backed Morey’s right to freedom of expression in two separate statements.
This furthered angered the Chinese government, which shut down multiple events scheduled to take place in Shanghai for both the Nets and Lakers, and the NBA responded by shutting down all media availability to players, which included a game in Shenzhen on Saturday.
On Tuesday night in Hong Kong photographers captured a rally at the Southorn Playground in Wan Chai where protesters threw basketballs at a photo of James and also burned a number of his jerseys.
James commented on the situation again after a Lakers practice on Tuesday, when asked if he knew what was going on in Hong Kong and that they were burning his jersey.