The Houston Rockets suddenly find themselves in the middle of a geopolitical controversy that could put their chief front-office executive’s job in jeopardy. After general manager Daryl Morey expressed support in a since-deleted tweet for pro- democracy efforts in Hong Kong, the Chinese government, the Chinese Basketball Association, and various Chinese businesses quickly denounced Morey and moved to sever ties with the Rockets. As a consequence, league sources told [i]The Ringer[/i]
that Rockets ownership has debated Morey’s employment status and whether to replace him.
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2019/10/6/...ontroversy
The NBA can turn over Mr. Morey to one of their Chinese reeducation facilities. You know the ones with millions of Muslim and Christian participants. I like to dislike Morey in the basketball world, but he did nothing wrong here.
Mr. Tsai mentions the previous external threats of the past but doesn't continue on with the tens of millions killed by their own "strong" government since that time.
Freedom is not just an American value Mr. Tsai.
The Rockets are the employer though and if they tell the employee not to comment on China, they have that right. Makes them (the Rockets and the NBA) look bad in the process.
Mr. Tsai is garbage.
Essentially said "China is ALLOWED to slaughter the protesters because they are still so hurt over their own history." Secondly, calling HK a separatist movement is propaganda in and of itself. Its like the Chinese government wrote that message, that conveniently leaves out the millions upon millions of Chinese citizens that have been slaughtered under their Communist regime. HK citizens are Chinese citizens which inherently contradicts Tsai's main point that all Chinese citizens are against "separatists" movements.
Morey did nothing wrong. China can go suck it.
With that said, the NBA and all NBA teams are not political organizations. At least they shouldn't be. I think Morey made a mistake not recognizing the potential fallout of tweeting that message from his own personal twitter, especially considering how big the Rockets are in China. But Morey did nothing wrong, and good on him for speaking out for freedom.
"We apologize. You know, we love China. We love playing there," Harden, speaking alongside Russell Westbrook, told reporters Monday. "For both of us individually, we go there once or twice a year. They show us the most important love."
Gotta love it. Hopefully this doesn't go away any time soon because it illustrates the difficulties in doing business with a country like China. Whether NBA likes it or not, they have to position themselves now.
Best thing Morey ever did. Time for the rest of the league to grow a spine and support him.
This is the free market at work, the NBA is above anything else a company that wants to make as much profit as possible and they are required to do what’s best for business and their shareholders. Vocal support for insurrectionists trying to destabilize China when they have a billion fans in China is simply not good for business. The money will always come before whatever you think the moral option is, and if a business even takes a moral stance you can rest assured it was also the most profitable one and good for their image.
Just an observation about our world:
$$$ >>>>>>>>>>> anything else
That includes democracy, communism, humanity, the planet, morality, life, etc. It is REALLY simple and to claim anything else is to try and fool ourselves. Democracy, communisim, or any other political ideology have ultimately been about being a vehicle for the flow of $$$ and nothing else.
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China sounds a lot like what's building up on the east and west coasts here ...
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