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- NBA Commissioner Adam Silver says the league isn’t going to change its relationship with China.
- He pointed out that “virtually every major US company” does business with China.
- Celtics center Enes Kanter Freedom has been outspoken about saying the NBA needs to distance itself from China.
Commissioner Adam Silver defended the NBA’s relationship with China and argued that it’s unfair to expect a sports league “to practice foreign policy,” comments that come after months of withering conservative criticism.
“Virtually every major U.S. company,” does business in China, Silver told The New York Times in a report published Thursday.
“So then the question becomes,” he said, “why is the N.B.A. being singled out as the one company that should now boycott China?”
He added: “It’s very difficult for the league to practice foreign policy.”
Silver denied that Celtics center Enes Kanter Freedom has been backlisted from the league. Freedom spent years criticizing Turkey before training his ire on the NBA this season for its relationship with China. Freedom spoke at a Senate Republican lunch and has been a frequent guest on Fox News.
“We spoke directly about his activities this season,” Silver told The Times, “and I made it absolutely clear to him that it was completely within his right to speak out on issues that he was passionate about.”
Freedom told The Times that Silver mischaracterized their meeting but wouldn’t expand on what was inaccurate about the commissioner’s account. The Celtics center also said others have told been to stop criticizing China, but the Times said it was difficult to confirm Freedom’s accounts.
“I don’t want to retire at the age of 29,” Freedom said at an event quoted in the Times story. “Sometimes sacrifice is a very important word, so there are bigger things.”
Conservative pushback on the NBA exploded in 2019 when then-Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of the Hong Kong protests. Superstar LeBron James later said Morey was “misinformed.” The Chinese government clamped down by stopping the broadcast of some Rockets games. Even some Democrats questioned the NBA’s response.
James and some of its other biggest stars are outspoken in their support for progressive causes. Golden State Warrior head coach Steve Kerr repeatedly condemned President Donald Trump when he was in office. Many lawmakers see this outspoken support of civil rights issues at home as incongruent for appealing to a market with widely documented human rights issues abroad.
Conservatives have also criticized Disney for filming parts of the live-action Mulan remake in Xinjiang province where mostly Muslim Uighurs are detained. And some Republicans wanted the US to entirely boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, even probing NBC over its relationship with the games.
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