NBA-China crisis: Adam Silver hopes for ‘mutual respect’ amid questions from US senator

Name: NBA ‘not apologising’ to China for Daryl Morey’s tweet about Hong Kong as CCTV drops preseason game broadcasts
Uploaded: 2020-07-01T05:23:41.000Z
Duration: 2 min 33 s
Description: NBA ‘not apologising’ to China for Daryl Morey’s tweet about Hong Kong as CCTV drops preseason game broadcasts

US senator writes to NBA commissioner questioning league’s US$4 billion relationship with China

Games pulled from state broadcaster following Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey’s controversial Hong Kong tweet last October

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A worker removes a promotional banner for the NBA China Games in Shanghai in October, 2019. The preseason game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Los Angeles Lakers was played amid controversy. Photo: AFP

Jonathan White

Published: 1:23pm, 1 Jul 2020Updated: 1:23pm, 1 Jul 2020

NBA commissioner Adam Silver has said that he thinks the league’s relationship with China has improved in recent months amid controversy that will not go away, including questions of the NBA from a US senator.

The league fell foul of a tweet by Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey last October that expressed support for Hong Kong’s anti-government protesters, which saw games pulled from China’s state broadcaster and the preseason games between the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets in Shanghai and Shenzhen threatened with cancellation.

Those preseason games went ahead but the fallout continued, with protests at regular season NBA games and the Houston Rockets snubbed in the mainland. In February, Silver speculated that the NBA may have lost up to US$400 million from China, which is its largest market outside the US.

“We’ve continued a dialogue with the Chinese, with our business partners there. In certain cases, with certain government officials,” Silver told Time on Tuesday, the same day that Beijing introduced its new National Security Law for Hong Kong.

02:33

NBA ‘not apologising’ to China for Daryl Morey’s tweet about Hong Kong as CCTV drops preseason game broadcasts

“As I’ve said before … we come to China with a certain set of core American values and principles. They have a different view of how things have been done, how things should be done. And hopefully, we can find mutual respect for each other.”

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