Show goes on amid controversy
Shanghai, Oct. 10: The NBA said that an annual exhibition game in Shanghai would go ahead Thursday, rejecting calls to scrap the event over a free speech row that was ignited by an American basketball executive’s pro-democracy tweet.
Superstar LeBron James and his Los Angeles Lakers teammates arrived at the arena for their game Thursday night against the Brooklyn Nets, the first of two pre-season matches held each year to build on the league’s already huge popularity in China.
But they tip off in a tense atmosphere after a tweet by a Houston Rockets executive last week in support of Hong Kong’s democracy movement thrust the world’s top basketball league into the centre of an escalating China-US dispute.
The games will not be seen in China -- local broadcasters cancelled plans to air them, and the NBA’s Chinese sponsors severed ties to protest against the comments by Rockets general manager Daryl Morey.
Giant promotional banners touting James and other stars were pulled down throughout Shanghai by the government on Wednesday, as many Chinese called for the games to be scrapped.
In an open letter released on Wednesday, a bipartisan set of US lawmakers also urged the NBA to suspend all activities in China as a principled show of support for “democratic rights”.
“It’s not unreasonable to expect American companies to put our fundamental democratic rights ahead of profit,” said the letter.
It urged NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who came to Shanghai for Thursday’s game, to “take a stand.”
But the NBA confirmed on Thursday that it would go ahead. An NBA representative also told AFP that there were currently “no changes” to plans for the second game of the series, scheduled for the southern city of Shenzhen on Saturday.