Houston Rockets Kissing China’s Ass
A star NBA general manager may lose his job for expressing American values.
Daryl Morey is arguably the best general manager in the National Basketball Association, consistently finding below-the-radar talent and keeping his team competitive for championships year in and year out. He’s in danger of losing his job for criticizing America’s most dangerous strategic competitor.
John Gonzalez, reporting for The Ringer:
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 The Ringer that Rockets ownership has debated Morey’s employment status and whether to replace him.
On Sunday, the Chinese Basketball Association issued a statement on Weibo—a Chinese social media platform akin to Twitter—and expressed its “strong opposition” to what it called Morey’s “improper remarks regarding Hong Kong.” As a result, the CBA said it was suspending “exchanges and cooperation” with the Rockets. The Chinese Consulate in Houston also issued a statement saying it was “deeply shocked” by Morey’s “erroneous comments” and expressed “strong dissatisfaction.” The consulate also urged the Rockets to “correct the error and take immediate concrete measures to eliminate the adverse impact.”
—-“Daryl Morey’s Hong Kong Tweet Has Put His Relationship With the Rockets in Limbo”
So, what did Morey do? And why would an American basketball team care about what the Communist Chinese think?
On Friday evening, Morey tweeted and then quickly deleted an image that said “fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.” That prompted Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta to publicly rebuke Morey.
Freedom would seem to be a core American value. And while “standing with” people facing violent reprisals from a brutal regime is barely a verb, it’s a reasonable sentiment. How could the Rockets’ owner, seemingly a decent guy in his own right, be opposed to it?
According to a recent survey, the Rockets were the second-most popular team in China. That’s no surprise, given the fact that Hall of Famer Yao Ming played for the Rockets and helped exponentially grow the sport’s popularity in the country. But Yao is now the chair of the Chinese Basketball Association, which criticized Morey in its statement for making “an inappropriate comment related to Hong Kong” and said it “strongly opposes” the general manager’s remarks. At the moment, it seems unlikely that Yao will act as a mediator in the dispute between Morey, the Rockets, and the Chinese.
Considering he and his family could be killed by the regime for speaking out, that’s hardly surprising. But so?
In addition to the CBA suspending cooperation with the Rockets, at least two other sponsors—sportswear brand Li-Ning and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPDB)—also announced they were halting their relationships with the organization, according to Reuters. A former Rockets reporter tweeted that SPDB would “stop all marketing and promotion activities related to the Rockets.”
In an even bigger blow to the franchise and the league, Tencent—the NBA digital rights holder in China—“announced a blacklist of Daryl Morey due to his ‘Free HK’ tweet” and said it would “suspend all reports/streaming” of the Houston Rockets. Tencent is now offering a “switch home teams” option for fans who bought a single-team pass to watch Rockets games.In July, Tencent and the NBA announced “a five-year expansion of their existing partnership” that would keep them in business through 2024-25 season. According to the release, nearly 500 million Chinese fans watched NBA games on Tencent platforms—which was up almost threefold from the 2014-15 season—while 21 million Chinese fans watched Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals through the service.
So, Morey could potentially cost the Rockets both a lot of money and access to some talented players. And even impact the whole NBA’s financial relationship with the most populous and second-richest (at least, in aggregate terms) country in the world.
That’s probably a dumb thing for a smart general manager to do. He has to know that his tweets, regardless of any disclaimers, are going to be interpreted as coming from the Rockets and/or the NBA. Given that, it was foolish for him to send out the tweet in question.
Still, owner Tillman Fertida’s response—“Listen…. @dmorey does NOT speak for the @HoustonRockets. Our presence in Tokyo is all about the promotion of the @NBA internationally and we are NOT a political organization”—is disappointing. Yes, the NBA is in Asia trying to promote the game. And, sure, taking political stands can alienate potential fans and customers. But, surely, supporting democracy protesters under siege by an autocratic regime is sufficiently innocuous—indeed, praiseworthy—that a billionaire team owner shouldn’t outright reject it.
Unfortunately, kowtowing to despots seems to be the cost of doing business in China. And American companies from Google to Facebook to the NBA are seemingly willing to pay that price.
This is an ironic statement given how big a deal the league made of it’s support for the BLM movement. So the kowtowing to China also hurts that movement as it makes the support they received look like insincere pandering.
@Stormy Dragon:
Slightly edited to beat the dead horse some more. Good point.
So South Park just said fuck you to the Chinese government with their new episode Band in China. You can watch the episode for free here. And now SP is banned on the Chinese internet. š
Well, it’s been quite a day for the US internationally, hasn’t it? Is there anybody in charge of anything who holds any value higher than money and power? Freedom, integrity, faithfulness – I guess those are all for chumps and losers.
For some reason a quote attributed to Lenin comes to mind: “The capitalists will sell us the rope we’ll use to hang them.”
Well, we do have a salient example today, in our White House, of someone who is willing to sell out ‘American values’ and American strategic interests, in the service of personal political interest.
Also ….
@Stormy Dragon:
This isn’t the league (NBA) at work here, this is Houston Rockets ownership appearing to cave in to Chines threats.
@al Ameda:
Apparently you haven’t seen the League’s press release on the issue yet:
Chinaās economy already dwarfs ours:
The old schoolyard bully hasnāt quite figured out that heās no longer the biggest kid. I wonder if he can fall back on brains and charm. Or if heās kept his friendships in good standing.
@Kit: From a comment at your link:
That is to say, the conclusion that China has the largest economy is based on a different way of measuring GDP – one that takes into account that lots of stuff in China is a lot cheaper than here. In some cases that matters, in others it doesn’t.
But of course, any nuance is buried by the headline.
I donāt think the NBA had to be so obsequious to the Chinese. Taking away a manās sports on TV is one of the surest ways to radicalize him, and the Chinese government surely knows that.
The Chinese were bluffing. Or making a mistake.
@Jay L Gischer: Small pet peeve of mine – people who compare military budgets never seem to take into account the difference between nominal and PPP. I would assume a Chinese infantryman is a lot cheaper than a US Army infantryman. And airplanes a bit cheaper.
@Stormy Dragon:
You’re right, apologies.
I don’t trim what I say on Twitter or anywhere else to the desires of thugs.
Like every writer I would love to break into the Chinese market. I had a chance. A Chinese publisher asked me to make changes to BZRK, switching references to China to make them references to Russia. I refused. But then I’m not a spineless cnt.
And there are reports that Tiny has told Xi that the US will not criticize China’s actions in Hong Kong.