Brooklyn Nets Beat Lakers To Sum Up Tense Chinese NBA Pre-Season Tour
15th October 2019
The two-game tour was thrown into disarray, with all public appearances cancelled other than the matches, after the league found itself at the centre of a raging US-China dispute over democracy and free speech
- The Brooklyn Nets defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 91-77 on Saturday to conclude a pre-season China tour that leaves behind big questions over the future of a key market worth billions of dollars to the NBA
- Despite the controversy, the teams have been embraced by Chinese fans at the first game on Thursday in Shanghai, also won by Brooklyn, and game two Saturday in the southern city of Shenzhen near Hong Kong
- Spectators have shown up by the thousands in Lakers and Nets jerseys, but many also put Chinese flag stickers over their shirts' NBA logo, or held small Chinese flags
SHANGHAI, China- The
Brooklyn Nets defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 91-77 on Saturday to conclude a
pre-season China tour that leaves behind big questions over the future of a key
market worth billions of dollars to the NBA.
The two-game tour was thrown into disarray, with all public
appearances cancelled other than the matches, after the league found itself at
the centre of a raging US-China dispute over democracy and free speech.
Despite the controversy, the teams have been embraced by
Chinese fans at the first game on Thursday in Shanghai, also won by Brooklyn,
and game two Saturday in the southern city of Shenzhen near Hong Kong.
Spectators have shown up by the thousands in Lakers and Nets
jerseys, but many also put Chinese flag stickers over their shirts' NBA logo,
or held small Chinese flags.
The controversy erupted when Houston Rockets general manager
Daryl Morey posted a since-deleted tweet on October 4 in support of
pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong who say China is eroding its freedoms.
China portrays the protesters as violent separatists, and its
state press and social media went ballistic over Morey's comment, though a
government effort to curb the vitriol now appears under way.
But the exhibition games were pulled from Chinese screens by
official broadcast partners in protest, and the NBA's Chinese sponsors have
severed ties en masse.
The affair exposed the fine line toed by the NBA in China,
where it has built a vast, lucrative fanbase in a country where free speech
does not exist, while touting itself back home as a champion of progressive values
like free expression.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo became the latest
high-profile US politician to urge the NBA to place principle over profit and
stand up to China, citing its mass detentions of Muslim ethnic Uighurs in its
Xinjiang region.
- Lose-lose? -
"The pages of George Orwell's '1984' are coming to life
there. I wish the NBA would acknowledge that," Pompeo said during a
speech in Nashville.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver further angered China by
defending Morey's right to speak out, but the NBA still pressed ahead with its
tour, though in a stripped-down form with every scheduled media or public event
cancelled.
The league said Friday it would be unfair to force the teams
to field media questions in China on the "complicated and unprecedented situation."
The NBA has run into what many other foreign businesses also
have learned the hard way -- Beijing demands they respect Chinese political
sensibilities if they want access to its huge market.
"But if you give in (to China) too much, you start to
anger your core (US) demographic," said Mark Dreyer, who runs the China
Sports Insider website.
"It's almost a lose-lose for the NBA."
On the court, the mood has been more positive, with fans
wildly cheering the players, especially Lakers superstar LeBron James.
Shenzhen authorities issued a public notice banning
provocative banners or gestures at the game.
But, as in Shanghai, some individuals in Shenzhen expressed
their anger at the league.
Some users posted pictures on Chinese social media burning
their game tickets outside the venue Saturday, while others arrived in t-shirts
bearing messages like "Hong Kong, Taiwan, and my soul belong to
China."
The NBA is expected to largely survive the crisis due to its
dominant position as perhaps the most popular sports league in China, where
giants billboards showing players like James and Golden State Warriors star
Stephen Curry are common.
"There are too many smart people on both sides who will
find a way to move past this," Dreyer said.