Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.” Every American should agree with these first three words. After all, fighting for freedom is the conviction that this nation was founded upon. But America’s own basketball league, the National Basketball Association, does not promote this statement. In fact, it vehemently opposes it. So, a problem arose when Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted that sentence on October 4. The reason this was a problem? Money.
The NBA has spent the last twenty years building ties and new revenue streams in China. According to political authorities in China, those decades of collaboration were severed when Morey tweeted support for Hong Kong. His statement enraged China and led the league to a difficult decision. On one hand, there was freedom of speech, and on the other, billions of dollars. Instead of doing the right thing and making a statement in support of the freedom of expression, the NBA went the spineless route and chose to placate the Chinese political establishment by releasing an incoherent statement vaguely claiming to support bringing people together.
It makes sense that the NBA would submit to the Chinese government because the league serves in the best interest of the owners. Selling out the people in Hong Kong who have fought for democracy by giving into an authoritarian regime would make it easier to fulfill the fantasies of sports team owners, which typically revolve around making more money. Yet it is wrong to be completely beholden to a foreign regime for the sake of revenue.
If the Houston Rockets fire Morey, as they’re reportedly considering, it would further reveal the ugly underbelly of professional sports leagues: nothing else matters except revenue, and anything that harms the ability to make money must be shut down. The NBA should not fire Morey, as it sets the precedent that freedom of speech doesn’t exist and that foreign interests control American sports. As NBA fans and American citizens, we can not allow for Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA, to become a puppet to the Chinese regime.
Unfortunately, the puppeteering has already begun. A direct order from China that no questions be asked or answered after a preseason game was adhered to, and consequently, freedom of speech was further repressed.
The NBA has long been known as the most progressive sports league, dedicated to championing players’ expression. Their reaction to Morey’s tweet suggests that this progressiveness is a façade. At the first sign of losing revenue, the league cowardly capitulated to Communist China. The NBA should make a stand for freedom and cut ties with a government that represses human rights.
