Chinese media removes Celtics games after player’s pro-tibet tweet

A pro-tibet tweet by Boston Celtics basketball player Enes Kanter could spell more trouble for the NBA in China, just two years after the league became a flashpoint in U.s.-china relations.

The player denounced President Xi Jinping as a “brutal dictator” and criticized China’s rule over Tibet in a message that contained a nearly three-minute video. “Tibet belongs to the Tibetan people!” Kanter wrote in the tweet. Wearing a black tee shirt with an image of the Dalai Lama, Kanter said in the video he could no longer“stay silent.”“under the Chinese government’s brutal rule, Tibetan people’s basic rights and freedoms are nonexistent,”he added.

As of Thursday morning in Hong Kong, internet giant Tencent pulled off all livestreaming for upcoming Celtics games, leaving confused fans wondering why in the comment section of its sports page. The NBA and its China arm didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from Bloomberg News. Tencent also didn’t respond.

Kanter was “grandstanding” to “draw eyeballs,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a regular news conference in Beijing on Thursday, without mentioning the NBA.

The NBA is the most popular U.S. sports league in China, and its business there is already a billiondollar enterprise.

In 2019, a tweet by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey in support of prodemocracy protests in Hong Kong spurred backlash from Chinese fans and corporate sponsors. State broadcaster CCTV suspended showings of NBA contests for about a year.