9 ms·

Houston Rockets general manager apologises for Hong Kong protest tweet

59 points by wei_jok 7y ago

conradfr 7y ago
It seems that the latest South Park episode was once again timely.
alkonaut 7y ago
Wait, a person expressed views in favour of democracy and felt he had to backtrack because of pressure from a dictatorship? Here's how this works: we express views that anger dictatorships, and if there is even a minute chance that your business tanks because of it - then you were in the wrong market or had the wrong owners. The right thing to do here for the NBA would be to stand behind this tweet. Corporations need to be constantly trolling China. I'm talking megacorps marking the anniversaries of Tianmen, or calling Taiwan "the totally independent country of Taiwan" and so on.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  You might want to look at the very long history of sport and power. Going back to at least the Greeks.
- dagw 7y ago
  had to backtrack because of pressure from a dictatorship? It's not pressure from a dictatorship that's making them back down, it's pressure from a big potential customer. The dictatorship part is both incidental and irrelevant to the NBA.
  - paxys 7y ago
    It is not at all irrelevant. In a fair economy (one that American companies mostly operate in), Chinese businesses, citizens and broadcasters would judge the Tweet and come to conclusions on their own. The Chinese reaction is instead forced by an authoritarian regime and has no economic merit.
  - alkonaut 7y ago
    > it's pressure from a big potential customer. That's my point when I said "you are in the wrong market". If you need to self-censor to make a billion in China, please leave that Billion on the table.
- pjc50 7y ago
  Sports are businesses. Businesses, as everyone reminds each other constantly on here, are kind of obliged to seek money first and morality second. Unfortunate, but endemic to the system. In the case of football, that means taking money from dictatorships to host the World Cup in unbearably hot countries in stadia built by slave labour. Why should basketball be any different? It's not as if American sport has covered itself in glory in its response to athletes making the smallest, most respectful domestic protest possible about police violence.
  - pbourke 7y ago
    > host the World Cup Isn’t that put on by the ostensibly non-profit FIFA? It seems closer to the Olympic Games to this very casual observer.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      FIFA is mostly a bribe-laundering organisation for the profit of individual staff. Certainly in the UK the top teams are for-profit competing in the for-profit Premier League, and as a result there's a lot of money from either oligarchs or gulf state monarchs. The huge "Emirates" stadium, for example.
  - PavlovsCat 7y ago
    > It's not as if American sport has covered itself in glory in its response to athletes making the smallest, most respectful domestic protest possible about police violence. What stands on the other side of the equation here aren't the villains and misdeeds elsewhere, it's the protesters in Hong Kong, and the reasons why they protest. Not all of them saints, all the time, but generally, I would very much sum them up as both innocent and correct in their demands, which so far have only been met with violence, in some cases extreme violence. In the last weeks I've seen so many videos of police attacking people basically for "fun" e.g. police throwing a garbage bin onto protesters from a bridge, just throwing tear gas at idle and unsuspecting journalists with no protesters in sight, and so on. Even American cops wouldn't remotely dream of acting like that, not sustainedly and while being surrounded by journalists.
  - 7y ago
- PavlovsCat 7y ago
  https://money.cnn.com/2018/02/07/technology/mercedes-benz-tibet-china-apology/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/02/07/technology/mercedes-benz-ti... As Sebastian Haffner said, by raising the Jewish question, and many other questions like it, constantly coming up with new ones, the Nazis skillfully managed to evade the Nazi question -- namely, whether they should exist. Megacorps need us more than we need them, spectator sports certainly needs us more than we need it. And you can't be friends with everybody, either you insult the murderers and their fans by calling it murder, or you insult the victims and yourself by failing to do so. It's not a game where you can join all factions by picking the right dialog options or having enough money. https://www.facebook.com/joe.tsai.3781/posts/2653378931391524 https://www.facebook.com/joe.tsai.3781/posts/265337893139152... > 1.4 billion Chinese citizens stand united when it comes to the territorial integrity of China and the country’s sovereignty over her homeland. This issue is non-negotiable. First off, that's like saying all Germans supported the Nazis because the ones who didn't were dead or didn't dare to speak up. Secondly, it was about always about 5 demands, not secession, and those demands being met with violence, for months. He doesn't want to be treated remotely like he, by looking away, is implicitly advocating for others to be treated, he simply preaches water and drinks wine, preaches torture camps and police terror and breathes fresh air. > In 1937, Japan invaded China by capturing Beijing, Shanghai and the then-Chinese capital Nanjing. Imperial Japanese troops committed mass murder and rape against the residents of Nanjing, resulting in several hundred thousand civilian deaths. Anyone who condemns that, but doesn't condemn what the CCP does, has simply no case, no standing, is the last person who should bring it up. You cannot pick and chose when you apply principles, if you actually have them. A just as valid way too look at it would be totalitarian murderers attacking innocent people. Yes, in that case they were Japanese, but if you support totalitarian murderers, that similarity outweighs what is written in the passport. Last but not least, if someone in America said "black people are just as decent human beings as white people", and the KKK went apeshit and demanded a retraction, would you care how many members they have, or that they have guns? Or that they are so angry, so badly educated, that they can't be reasoned with? That's what you're going to throw away the few noble things humanity achieved in the last few centuries for? Not in my name, and not with my support.
- simonh 7y ago
  The problem isn't with angering dictatorships, it's about angering a lot of ordinary Chinese mainlanders who have been convinced that the HK protesters are traitors. This is a serious problem, because it's simply not possible to persuade them otherwise, because the channels to do so are censored by the Chinese government. It's a crazily scary issue. My family is half Chinese and my niece came over from China this summer. The only things she knew about the HK protests was that some violent anti-mainlander anarchists had protested against the use of the Chinese flag on some buildings. The vast majority of mainlanders have never even heard of the extradition law. As a result mainland Chinese see any support for the HK protesters as being a direct attack against the identity, nationality and integrity of China and Chinese people. Foreigners being seen as interfering is seen as further proof that the HK protests are incited by foreigners and are an anti-Chinese plot so unless it's handled very carefully it can make the situation worse, not better. It's tough, but I think the best approach, if you do want to express support for HK, is instead to focus on the Censorship of the issues by the Chinese government.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    It's not a question of censorship. This is caused by the protesters themselves (at least some of them). I'm in the UK and the Chinese people I know only need to watch the reporting on the BBC to be convinced that a lot of protesters are anti-China and potentially propped up by foreign forces: Violence, attacks on government buildings, attacks on the Chinese flag, flying foreign flags, calling on the Brits and Americans to intervene, etc. The actions of these protesters have ensured that the Chinese government cannot do anything but standing firm. I don't know what Chinese TVs show to the public on the mainland, but if they show what the BBC shows then the people can only be outraged and absolutely against the protesters. The way these protesters behave has completely drowned any message regarding democracy, which the Chinese public might actually be receptive to, though indeed that would be censored by the media on the mainland. That's another reason not to hand the government the stick to beat them with.
    - sagichmal 7y ago
      Lol.
paxys 7y ago
Could you imagine the NBA making players apologize for posting Tweets criticizing Trump? Remember when LeBron and others wore "I Can't Breathe" t-shirts and Adam Silver supported them? Teams & players should be taking a strong stand here to support one of their own, but this really shows that there is a $$$ value for everything, including freedom of speech and expression. Economic threats from a foreign government should be treated the same as military ones. I'm sure Rockets games will be back on air in an instant if US sanctions expand to completely block NBA broadcasting in China, player visas and sports apparel manufacturing.
- GooglyMoogly 7y ago
  Well football player Colin Kaepernick previously faced a lot of criticism for kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racism, and Donald Trump said he should be fired. Colin then accused the NFL of keeping him out of the league due to it. Although this is a bit different, because this happens on the field, whereas Twitter is more separate.
- dagw 7y ago
  Could you imagine the NBA making players apologize for posting Tweets criticizing Trump? If Trump started an anti-NBA campaign that directly affected their future profits, they would absolutely apologize. See the NFL.
- vkou 7y ago
  > Could you imagine the NBA making players apologize for posting Tweets criticizing Trump? You tell me. Didn't the NFL just drag a couple of their players through the mud for having the audacity to kneel in solidarity with victims of racism? My take on it is that not making authoritarians feel uncomfortable - via exposing them to non-conformity during an anthem - is very important to the NFL. The only expression of politics it permits is a pro-government, unquestionably patriotic one. Which is pretty normal for a sports league.
- m0skit0 7y ago
  NBA players do not depend directly on Chinese money. A Rocket manager does.
wei_jok 7y ago
A true Rockets fan in China: https://twitter.com/rachel_cheung1/status/1181130229810487297 https://twitter.com/rachel_cheung1/status/118113022981048729...
- shawnz 7y ago
  The picture of him in confinement is horrifying.
PavlovsCat 7y ago
> "Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong" -> "I was merely voicing one thought, based on one interpretation, of one complicated event," he said, adding that he had since heard and considered other perspectives. Unless I hear those "other perspectives", I'll simply assume he was exposed to pressure, not reason.
- dagw 7y ago
  Exposed to the perspectives of how much money he personally stood to gain/lose on the outcome of the NBA's deals with China.
GooglyMoogly 7y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176976
- wei_jok 7y ago
  Thanks. I couldn't read the WSJ article (paywall) so submitted the reuters article here.
  - GooglyMoogly 7y ago
    When I google the WSJ article URL, and click the link from the search results, I don't get a paywall.
jackvalentine 7y ago
If a guy who has earned a GM's salary for years can't stick by his guns regarding free speech before the dollar then maybe nobody can.
melling 7y ago
China is a huge market for the NBA, and it could disappear in a tweet. https://www.si.com/nba/2019/10/07/daryl-morey-rockets-china-hong-kong-basketball https://www.si.com/nba/2019/10/07/daryl-morey-rockets-china-... Now that China is the second largest economy, it has a lot of global influence.
- sdinsn 7y ago
  > it has a lot of global influence It only has influence if we give it influence, through crushing dissent like this. The NBA is complicit in the destruction of democracy and the ethnic cleansing of a religious minority; don't forget that.
m0skit0 7y ago
Capitalism's democracy.

59 points by wei_jok 7y ago

It seems that the latest South Park episode was once again timely.

Wait, a person expressed views in favour of democracy and felt he had to backtrack because of pressure from a dictatorship? Here's how this works: we express views that anger dictatorships, and if there is even a minute chance that your business tanks because of it - then you were in the wrong market or had the wrong owners. The right thing to do here for the NBA would be to stand behind this tweet. Corporations need to be constantly trolling China. I'm talking megacorps marking the anniversaries of Tianmen, or calling Taiwan "the totally independent country of Taiwan" and so on.

dredmorbius 7y ago
You might want to look at the very long history of sport and power. Going back to at least the Greeks.
dagw 7y ago
had to backtrack because of pressure from a dictatorship? It's not pressure from a dictatorship that's making them back down, it's pressure from a big potential customer. The dictatorship part is both incidental and irrelevant to the NBA.
- paxys 7y ago
  It is not at all irrelevant. In a fair economy (one that American companies mostly operate in), Chinese businesses, citizens and broadcasters would judge the Tweet and come to conclusions on their own. The Chinese reaction is instead forced by an authoritarian regime and has no economic merit.
- alkonaut 7y ago
  > it's pressure from a big potential customer. That's my point when I said "you are in the wrong market". If you need to self-censor to make a billion in China, please leave that Billion on the table.
pjc50 7y ago
Sports are businesses. Businesses, as everyone reminds each other constantly on here, are kind of obliged to seek money first and morality second. Unfortunate, but endemic to the system. In the case of football, that means taking money from dictatorships to host the World Cup in unbearably hot countries in stadia built by slave labour. Why should basketball be any different? It's not as if American sport has covered itself in glory in its response to athletes making the smallest, most respectful domestic protest possible about police violence.
- pbourke 7y ago
  > host the World Cup Isn’t that put on by the ostensibly non-profit FIFA? It seems closer to the Olympic Games to this very casual observer.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    FIFA is mostly a bribe-laundering organisation for the profit of individual staff. Certainly in the UK the top teams are for-profit competing in the for-profit Premier League, and as a result there's a lot of money from either oligarchs or gulf state monarchs. The huge "Emirates" stadium, for example.
- PavlovsCat 7y ago
  > It's not as if American sport has covered itself in glory in its response to athletes making the smallest, most respectful domestic protest possible about police violence. What stands on the other side of the equation here aren't the villains and misdeeds elsewhere, it's the protesters in Hong Kong, and the reasons why they protest. Not all of them saints, all the time, but generally, I would very much sum them up as both innocent and correct in their demands, which so far have only been met with violence, in some cases extreme violence. In the last weeks I've seen so many videos of police attacking people basically for "fun" e.g. police throwing a garbage bin onto protesters from a bridge, just throwing tear gas at idle and unsuspecting journalists with no protesters in sight, and so on. Even American cops wouldn't remotely dream of acting like that, not sustainedly and while being surrounded by journalists.
- 7y ago
PavlovsCat 7y ago
https://money.cnn.com/2018/02/07/technology/mercedes-benz-tibet-china-apology/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/02/07/technology/mercedes-benz-ti... As Sebastian Haffner said, by raising the Jewish question, and many other questions like it, constantly coming up with new ones, the Nazis skillfully managed to evade the Nazi question -- namely, whether they should exist. Megacorps need us more than we need them, spectator sports certainly needs us more than we need it. And you can't be friends with everybody, either you insult the murderers and their fans by calling it murder, or you insult the victims and yourself by failing to do so. It's not a game where you can join all factions by picking the right dialog options or having enough money. https://www.facebook.com/joe.tsai.3781/posts/2653378931391524 https://www.facebook.com/joe.tsai.3781/posts/265337893139152... > 1.4 billion Chinese citizens stand united when it comes to the territorial integrity of China and the country’s sovereignty over her homeland. This issue is non-negotiable. First off, that's like saying all Germans supported the Nazis because the ones who didn't were dead or didn't dare to speak up. Secondly, it was about always about 5 demands, not secession, and those demands being met with violence, for months. He doesn't want to be treated remotely like he, by looking away, is implicitly advocating for others to be treated, he simply preaches water and drinks wine, preaches torture camps and police terror and breathes fresh air. > In 1937, Japan invaded China by capturing Beijing, Shanghai and the then-Chinese capital Nanjing. Imperial Japanese troops committed mass murder and rape against the residents of Nanjing, resulting in several hundred thousand civilian deaths. Anyone who condemns that, but doesn't condemn what the CCP does, has simply no case, no standing, is the last person who should bring it up. You cannot pick and chose when you apply principles, if you actually have them. A just as valid way too look at it would be totalitarian murderers attacking innocent people. Yes, in that case they were Japanese, but if you support totalitarian murderers, that similarity outweighs what is written in the passport. Last but not least, if someone in America said "black people are just as decent human beings as white people", and the KKK went apeshit and demanded a retraction, would you care how many members they have, or that they have guns? Or that they are so angry, so badly educated, that they can't be reasoned with? That's what you're going to throw away the few noble things humanity achieved in the last few centuries for? Not in my name, and not with my support.
simonh 7y ago
The problem isn't with angering dictatorships, it's about angering a lot of ordinary Chinese mainlanders who have been convinced that the HK protesters are traitors. This is a serious problem, because it's simply not possible to persuade them otherwise, because the channels to do so are censored by the Chinese government. It's a crazily scary issue. My family is half Chinese and my niece came over from China this summer. The only things she knew about the HK protests was that some violent anti-mainlander anarchists had protested against the use of the Chinese flag on some buildings. The vast majority of mainlanders have never even heard of the extradition law. As a result mainland Chinese see any support for the HK protesters as being a direct attack against the identity, nationality and integrity of China and Chinese people. Foreigners being seen as interfering is seen as further proof that the HK protests are incited by foreigners and are an anti-Chinese plot so unless it's handled very carefully it can make the situation worse, not better. It's tough, but I think the best approach, if you do want to express support for HK, is instead to focus on the Censorship of the issues by the Chinese government.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  It's not a question of censorship. This is caused by the protesters themselves (at least some of them). I'm in the UK and the Chinese people I know only need to watch the reporting on the BBC to be convinced that a lot of protesters are anti-China and potentially propped up by foreign forces: Violence, attacks on government buildings, attacks on the Chinese flag, flying foreign flags, calling on the Brits and Americans to intervene, etc. The actions of these protesters have ensured that the Chinese government cannot do anything but standing firm. I don't know what Chinese TVs show to the public on the mainland, but if they show what the BBC shows then the people can only be outraged and absolutely against the protesters. The way these protesters behave has completely drowned any message regarding democracy, which the Chinese public might actually be receptive to, though indeed that would be censored by the media on the mainland. That's another reason not to hand the government the stick to beat them with.
  - sagichmal 7y ago
    Lol.

paxys 7y ago

Could you imagine the NBA making players apologize for posting Tweets criticizing Trump? Remember when LeBron and others wore "I Can't Breathe" t-shirts and Adam Silver supported them? Teams & players should be taking a strong stand here to support one of their own, but this really shows that there is a $$$ value for everything, including freedom of speech and expression. Economic threats from a foreign government should be treated the same as military ones. I'm sure Rockets games will be back on air in an instant if US sanctions expand to completely block NBA broadcasting in China, player visas and sports apparel manufacturing.

GooglyMoogly 7y ago
Well football player Colin Kaepernick previously faced a lot of criticism for kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racism, and Donald Trump said he should be fired. Colin then accused the NFL of keeping him out of the league due to it. Although this is a bit different, because this happens on the field, whereas Twitter is more separate.
dagw 7y ago
Could you imagine the NBA making players apologize for posting Tweets criticizing Trump? If Trump started an anti-NBA campaign that directly affected their future profits, they would absolutely apologize. See the NFL.
vkou 7y ago
> Could you imagine the NBA making players apologize for posting Tweets criticizing Trump? You tell me. Didn't the NFL just drag a couple of their players through the mud for having the audacity to kneel in solidarity with victims of racism? My take on it is that not making authoritarians feel uncomfortable - via exposing them to non-conformity during an anthem - is very important to the NFL. The only expression of politics it permits is a pro-government, unquestionably patriotic one. Which is pretty normal for a sports league.
m0skit0 7y ago
NBA players do not depend directly on Chinese money. A Rocket manager does.

wei_jok 7y ago

A true Rockets fan in China: https://twitter.com/rachel_cheung1/status/1181130229810487297 https://twitter.com/rachel_cheung1/status/118113022981048729...

shawnz 7y ago
The picture of him in confinement is horrifying.

PavlovsCat 7y ago

> "Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong" -> "I was merely voicing one thought, based on one interpretation, of one complicated event," he said, adding that he had since heard and considered other perspectives. Unless I hear those "other perspectives", I'll simply assume he was exposed to pressure, not reason.

dagw 7y ago
Exposed to the perspectives of how much money he personally stood to gain/lose on the outcome of the NBA's deals with China.

GooglyMoogly 7y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176976

wei_jok 7y ago
Thanks. I couldn't read the WSJ article (paywall) so submitted the reuters article here.
- GooglyMoogly 7y ago
  When I google the WSJ article URL, and click the link from the search results, I don't get a paywall.

jackvalentine 7y ago

If a guy who has earned a GM's salary for years can't stick by his guns regarding free speech before the dollar then maybe nobody can.

melling 7y ago

China is a huge market for the NBA, and it could disappear in a tweet. https://www.si.com/nba/2019/10/07/daryl-morey-rockets-china-hong-kong-basketball https://www.si.com/nba/2019/10/07/daryl-morey-rockets-china-... Now that China is the second largest economy, it has a lot of global influence.

sdinsn 7y ago
> it has a lot of global influence It only has influence if we give it influence, through crushing dissent like this. The NBA is complicit in the destruction of democracy and the ethnic cleansing of a religious minority; don't forget that.

m0skit0 7y ago

Capitalism's democracy.