The NBA's China Problem...

.
.
Many in the U.S. are condemning the NBA for trying to mollify China, after Houston's GM, Daryl Morey tweeted, "Stand for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong!"

Trying to mollify China is good business, especially since China already has more NBA fans than America has people.

The NBA's Commissioner, Adam Silver has actually doubled down on Houston Rockets' GM Daryl Morey's sentiments, in saying, "Values of equality, respect and freedom of expression have long defined the NBA — and will continue to do so. As an American-based basketball league operating globally, among our greatest contributions are these values of the game...."

"It is inevitable that people around the world — including from America and China — will have different viewpoints over different issues. It is not the role of the NBA to adjudicate those differences. However, the NBA will not put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say or will not say on these issues. We simply could not operate that way."

The NBA has refused to fire, nor even sanction Daryl Morey over, perhaps the most expensive tweet in history.

Now THAT'S a principled stand. (https://www.forbes.com/…/thanks-to-adam-silver-the-nba-al…/…)

Many players, coaches and owners, most notably Houston's Tilman Fertitta, who panicked, then tweeted that Morey didn’t speak for the Rockets, while allegedly making Morey delete his initial tweet and Russell Westbrook, among others who've offered immediate apologias to China, expressing how much NBA players live playing in China, while others, like Steve Kerr and LeBron James have remained uncharacteristically quiet.

THOSE are NOT a principled stands.

The L.A. Times acknowledged, "The People’s Republic of China is the land of opportunity for many American businesses, with its vast and fast-growing middle class. But doing business there often entails many compromises, some of them painful, including sacrificing some trade secrets, enduring unfair competition from government-owned rivals and abiding by behavioral rules set by a repressive regime.

"The potential for enormous profits in China is enough to persuade many U.S. businesses to park their values and principles at the departure gate. But this week, the National Basketball Assn. has defied pressure from the Chinese government, businesses and fans to smack down a team executive who’d offended China with a politically charged tweet. Considering the stakes involved, that’s a brave and welcome move."
(https://www.latimes.com/…/st…/2019-10-10/nba-china-hong-kong)

Those "compromises," all that, "sacrificing trade secrets, enduring unfair competition from government-owned rivals and abiding by behavioral rules set by a repressive regime," is what the current administration has been fighting over, in what an all too often China-complicit U.S. media has called, "A trade war," as though the U.S. is wrong to demand fair trade.

Sadly none of this unprincipled moral wrangling is at all surprising, in fact, it's been par for the course in America for a long time. Adam Silver's stand is all the more refreshing.

China makes money off the NBA and they're in economic chaos right now. So, it WOULDN'T take all that much courage for the NBA to stand against China's tyranny and authoritarianism, but it DOES take principle.

Many IN the NBA apparently have none.

HOWEVER, Adam Silver and the NBA leadership HAVE shown real principle and moral courage in the face of this conflict.

It's been the same with traditional Islam. Sharia Law makes homosexuality and female adultery death penalty bounces and yet...few on the Left in the U.S. dare criticize Islam for these things.

I'd like to give those Americans credit for "tolerance and inclusion," BUT it's really more about their "moral cowardice" and THAT is America's real problem today.
.