OpinionNBA season gets under way with China crisis far from resolved

The league’s row with China is far from over and will undoubtedly be a talking point during the 2019-20 season

Many questions remain, including how each entity pivots and approaches the long term outlook regarding this controversy

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Is LeBron James the NBA’s new villain? Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 4:00am, 23 Oct 2019Updated: 4:32am, 23 Oct 2019

There are a lot of “what ifs” as the 2019-20 National Basketball Association season gets under way on Wednesday (Hong Kong time), and a lot of them have nothing to do with basketball. The NBA’s China crisis has simmered, but the wounds are still open and may fester instead of fade. Let’s look at some of the questions around this prickly topic as we get set for tip-off:

How long before Tencent folds on not broadcasting Houston Rockets games?

Tencent isn’t showing Rockets games, but for how long? Photo: Reuters

This could get tricky for the Chinese media giant. In not showing Houston Rockets games, Tencent is also denying subscribers the ability to watch their team play Houston. When general manager Daryl Morey, who infamously tweeted his support for the Hong Kong protesters, and his players take on the Golden State Warriors on November 7, fans in China will be denied the right to watch superstar Stephen Curry take on James Harden and Russell Westbrook.

This gets even more difficult for Tencent when the play-offs start. The Rockets are tipped by some analysts as a team that could make its way to the NBA finals, or at least the Western Conference finals. Money talks, and if the Rockets go deep into the second season and not showing their games becomes a serious issue (including a full blackout if they make the finals), don’t expect country to trump dollar signs come April.

The other problem is that the Rockets’ James Harden and Russell Westbrook have two of the bestselling jerseys in the league. Adidas made Harden one of the faces of the NBA after it signed him to a 13-year deal in 2015, and Westbrook signed for 10 years with Nike in 2017 and got his first signature shoe last year.