Knicks · I never liked Lebron James but now I do. He is a hero and not afraid to speak out.Hears why. (page 2)
smackeddog wrote:.....and do some reflection.....
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/d...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/lebron-jam...
LeBron James says 'Jewish money' Instagram post meant as a compliment
Mon 24 Dec 2018 08.08 EST
LeBron James has apologized after an Instagram post that mentioned “Jewish money”.The Los Angeles Lakers star regularly posts song lyrics to his Instagram account, and on Saturday he quoted asmr by 21 Savage, which includes the line “We been gettin’ that Jewish money, everything is kosher”.
....“That’s not why I chose to share that lyric. I always [post lyrics]. That’s what I do. I ride in my car, I listen to great music, and that was the byproduct of it. So I actually thought it was a compliment..........He added that he thought the lyrics were a tribute to the strength of the Jewish community.
James is not expected to be fined by the NBA for the post but it is an embarrassing incident for someone who is a prominent voice on social issues.
The full line from 21 Savage’s song “Asmr” goes, “We been gettin’ that Jewish money, everything is Kosher (On God) Bought myself a ‘Ventador and bought my bitch a Roadster (Straight up) Drive my Lambo to the store, I’ma wave with my doors.”
Papabear wrote:
Agree with Papabear.
Not a LBJ Fan but I come to respect him because, I'm honest
Enough to say I'm interested in whatever athletes stars are
About outside their sports talent gifts given.The other side or stories are real, compelling so LBJ
gets A- from me. DID things outside the sport & does not
have any legal issues to cloud his character.We need that from Knickerbockers ownership!
Nyk brass does not LOVE nor care for our Ass'Papabear Says
Lebron was a player I didn't like and he played games with New York. I didn't like him. Then I saw the things he has done for poor kid and being a comunity activist got my attention. The man cares about social injustice in this country. He speaks out about this and don't care if he looses fans. It reminds me of Kareem,I won't mention Ali yet but he is getting there. He put up money for ex prisoners to pay their fine and vote. If he continues down this path it wont matter it he don't get 6 rings he will be a hero for the right of those who can't speak for themselves. Now I don't want this to be a race issue like that fat puff face Charles Barkley. But just food for thought.
by the way check out my new video
Nalod wrote:The same hypocrisy can be made by any major sports star with apparel endorsements from products made in emerging Asian manufacturing who utters a single view towards racial injustice.
Or a Sports drink during with starving Americans.
Or leather from cows.
Or colleges with compromised female gymnasts who were abused.
So if Lebron said nothing like Jordan did (does) the it would be better?
“It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.”
― Noël Coward
"Don't let your will roar when your power only whispers."
— Dr. Thomas Fuller
"Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds."
- Logan Pearsall Smith
“He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.”
― George Orwell
“For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.”
― Noam Chomsky
https://www.dailytargum.com/article/2019...
Adam Silver, the current commissioner of the NBA, quickly began the league's trek toward politics — though perhaps unintentionally. Former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling was caught making severely racist comments, causing Silver to permanently ban him from the league.“I am personally distraught that the views expressed by Mr. Sterling came from within an institution that has historically taken such a leadership role in matters of race relations and caused current and former players, coaches, fans and partners of the NBA to question their very association with the league,” Silver said in a now-famous press conference.
There was rightfully little controversy over Silver’s decision to ban Sterling from the league, and his response was widely well-received, beginning the NBA’s path toward politics.
Another opportunity to display the league’s political depth came in 2017, when the state of North Carolina was both playing host to the NBA All-Star Game and working on passing a bill that would limit protections in relation to transgender individuals and bathroom choice.
Silver once more chose the progressive option, pulling the all-star game from the state in retaliation.
“We have been guided in these discussions by the long-standing core values of our league. These include not only diversity, inclusion, fairness and respect for others but also the willingness to listen and consider opposing points of view,” the league stated.
... The NBA has made it clear that it would like to project an image of progressive values and civil advocacy.
Across the Pacific Ocean, protests against the authoritarian nature of the Chinese government in Hong Kong erupted in June, continuing to this day and garnering intensive media coverage.
The NBA has an incredible amount of money invested into China, and more specifically the Houston Rockets. It has remained one of the most popular American teams in the country. This is no surprise, as the current President of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), Yao Ming, is a former NBA star of the Rockets.
Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support for the Hong Kong protests last Friday. The NBA, with their cutting-edge progressiveness displayed on previous occasions, might be expected to support or at the very least turn a blind eye to Morey’s tweet.
That was not the case. Joe Tsai, owner of the Brooklyn Nets, quickly responded with a long Facebook post ..... The NBA called Morey’s comments “regrettable” and said they were “disappointed” in Morey’s views.
All of this led to Morey apologizing via Twitter, with a tweet, “I did not intend my tweet to cause any offense to Rockets fans and friends of mine in China. I was merely voicing one thought, based on one interpretation, of one complicated event. I have had a lot of opportunity since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives,” Morey tweeted.
It is interesting that the league chose to reject their “woke” image and support China, but at the same time, it is not surprising at all. Banning Sterling? No real financial impact with that move. Moving the All-Star Game? A hassle, but ultimately a profitable move. Aggravating China, the world's second-largest economy? Not nearly as profitable, evidently.
This incident further goes to show the commanding influence of the mighty dollar. The Hong Kong protest is one of the only political issues with near-homogeneity around the Western world, with many supporting the protests.
A rebuke of China by the NBA would have fallen in line with their previous record, but rather, Silver said, “It is inevitable that people around the world — including from America and China — will have different viewpoints over different issues. It is not the role of the NBA to adjudicate those differences.”
Clearly, it is not their role when they have money to lose. The NBA dropped the political act as quickly as it adopted it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/07/sport...Nets Owner Joe Tsai Didn’t Seem Political. Until Now.
By Sopan Deb and Li Yuan
Oct. 7, 2019The owners of major American sports franchises generally do not dive headlong into geopolitical firestorms.
But not many owners have the background of Joe Tsai, a Taiwanese-born billionaire who recently became the primary owner of the Brooklyn Nets. This weekend, Tsai surprised many when he weighed in after the N.B.A. responded to a Twitter post by a league executive supporting Hong Kong’s anti-government protesters, just as a furor over the tweet reached a fever pitch.
Tsai replied on Sunday night — roughly 48 hours after Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, had tweeted, “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong,” a comment that sent a shudder through N.B.A. headquarters, as well as the league’s partners at the highest echelons of Chinese basketball.
Morey’s boss, the Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, rebuked him on Twitter, and Morey deleted the post. The N.B.A. issued a statement saying that it was “regrettable” that Morey’s tweet had offended people, but that “the values of the league support individuals’ educating themselves and sharing their views on matters important to them.”
Then, as denunciations of the N.B.A. rolled in from the Chinese mainland, American politicians from both parties rallied behind Morey, condemning the league for not standing more firmly behind the executive.
Tsai — known in China as the man behind Jack Ma, the founder of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group — posted a lengthy open letter on Facebook, referring to the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong as a “separatist movement,” an echo of language from Beijing.
Tsai also criticized Morey, calling his Twitter post “damaging to the relationship with our fans in China.”
For months, Tsai has not been outspoken as protests against the central government in Beijing roiled Hong Kong. Demonstrators have accused the ruling Communist Party of trying to curtail civil liberties in the semiautonomous territory. “Fight for Freedom” and “Stand with Hong Kong” are often chanted at the protests.
As a team owner, Tsai, who declined to comment for this article, has emphasized helping the N.B.A. make inroads in China, where basketball has become the most popular sport. While the letter may have helped his efforts, it also crystallized the league’s decision to bow to economic pressure from its partners in China over support in the United States for Morey and the Hong Kong protesters.
“All the Americans on Twitter are criticizing NBA for not supporting freedom of speech,” Kai Qu, a tech blogger, wrote on the online platform WeChat. “On Weibo,” he wrote, referring to China’s equivalent of Twitter, “the Chinese are all criticizing NBA for not openly condemning and punishing. It’s a great cultural clash. Anybody who was caught in between will have no way to get out of it.”
In China’s tech industry, Ma is considered the creative force, and Tsai the one who turned ideas into action. Ahead of Alibaba’s initial public offering in New York in 2014, Tsai worked long hours with bankers and investors to help pull off the biggest-ever public offering.
The offering made Tsai one of the world’s wealthiest people. Forbes ranks him as the 147th richest person with a net worth of $9.5 billion. The son of a lawyer, Tsai came to the United States at the age of 13 to attend the Lawrenceville School, a private boarding school in New Jersey. He attended college at Yale and earned his law degree there, too.
While working at the Swedish investment company Investor AB in 1999, he went to check out an internet start-up called Alibaba in Hangzhou, in eastern China. Investor AB passed on the opportunity to invest, but Tsai decided to quit his job to join the start-up.
Ma, who worked out of his apartment with about 20 young associates, was surprised. Tsai was making around $700,000 a year, and Ma said he could afford to pay him only about $7,000. Tsai would help bring in key investors, such as Goldman Sachs and SoftBank, and pave the way for Alibaba to become a conglomerate that transformed how the Chinese shop.
Tsai was in charge of Alibaba’s overall investment and growth strategy until earlier this year. He still holds the title of executive vice chairman. He and Ma, who retired as executive chairman last month, are the only lifetime members of the Alibaba Partnership, a group of a few dozen employees with tremendous power over the company’s board and leadership, as well as its bonus pool.
Those who know Tsai describe him as smart and low key, someone who intentionally stayed in the shadow of the eloquent and high-profile Ma because he believed that a company needed only one spokesman.
In recent years, Tsai gradually drifted out of Ma’s shadow. He has appeared at tech conferences and given talks at Lawrenceville and Yale, but has rarely spoken about politics.
By Monday afternoon, Alibaba’s Taobao, a sales website, had essentially taken Houston Rockets products off the platform. The official Weibo account of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, quoted an Alibaba spokesman as saying that Morey’s Twitter speech had severely hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.
Tsai’s foray into professional American basketball was unusual. The vast majority of professional sports franchises in the United States are owned by white men, not people of color. Also, the acquisition was a rare example of an American sports team being acquired with mostly foreign money — although in this case, the franchise’s previous owner was a Russian billionaire. But Tsai seemed like an ideal fit for the N.B.A., especially to tap into the rabid basketball fan base in China.
In October 2017, Tsai paid a little more than $1 billion to acquire 49 percent of the Brooklyn Nets from Mikhail D. Prokhorov; the team had achieved mostly middling results on the court since he offered to buy the franchise in 2009. That deal came on the heels of several Chinese entrants into the sports market, such as a $650 million acquisition of the Ironman competition in 2015 by the Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda.
Tsai played lacrosse at Yale, and just months before the announcement of the Nets acquisition he purchased the San Diego franchise of the National Lacrosse League. At Yale Law School, Tsai occasionally played pickup basketball with a future Supreme Court justice, Brett M. Kavanaugh. Both of Tsai’s children also play basketball.
Earlier this year, Tsai purchased a W.N.B.A. team, the New York Liberty, from the Madison Square Garden ownership group. In April, the Liberty drafted Han Xu, a 6-foot-9 center, a Chinese national with enough of a following in her home country to draw comparisons to Yao Ming’s journey to the United States.
Tsai clearly saw the Nets as an opportunity to use basketball to bridge what he saw as a divide between China and the United States.
In May, before an exhibition game between the Liberty and the Chinese national team, Tsai told reporters: “I’m steeped in this discussion and find myself having to explain China to Americans a lot. This game, by bringing the national women’s team from China, is a platform for the two cultures to see how each other compete. You learn a little more about each other’s cultures. This is absolutely important. If there were more opportunities for me to support these kinds of changes, I’d do more of that.”
This summer, the N.B.A. announced that Tsai had acquired the entire stake of the Nets, valued at roughly $2.35 billion, a league record. The league — as well as Tsai — has a great deal riding on his investment in the Nets. The team made several expensive free-agent acquisitions this off-season, including Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. The Nets’ brass hopes the team will draw more fans after having some of the worst attendance numbers in the league last season....
In the news release announcing the approval of the Nets sale, the N.B.A. commissioner, Adam Silver, said, “In addition to being a passionate basketball fan, Joe is one of China’s pre-eminent internet, media and e-commerce pioneers, and his expertise will be invaluable in the league’s efforts to grow the game in China and other global markets.”
https://www.facebook.com/joe.tsai.3781/p...Joe Tsai
October 6, 2019 ·Open letter to all NBA fans:
When I bought controlling interest in the Brooklyn Nets in September, I didn’t expect my first public communication with our fans would be to comment on something as politically charged and grossly misunderstood as the way hundreds of millions of Chinese NBA fans feel about what just happened.
By now you have heard that Chinese fans have reacted extremely negatively to a tweet put out by Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey in support of protests in Hong Kong.
The Rockets, who by far had been the favorite team in China, are now effectively shut out of the Chinese market as fans abandon their love for the team, broadcasters refuse to air their games and Chinese corporates pull sponsorships in droves.
Fans in China are calling for an explanation – if they are not getting it from the Houston Rockets, then it is natural that they ask others associated with the NBA to express a view.
The NBA is a fan-first league. When hundreds of millions of fans are furious over an issue, the league, and anyone associated with the NBA, will have to pay attention. As a Governor of one of the 30 NBA teams, and a Chinese having spent a good part of my professional life in China, I need to speak up.
What is the problem with people freely expressing their opinion? This freedom is an inherent American value and the NBA has been very progressive in allowing players and other constituents a platform to speak out on issues.
The problem is, there are certain topics that are third-rail issues in certain countries, societies and communities.
Supporting a separatist movement in a Chinese territory is one of those third-rail issues, not only for the Chinese government, but also for all citizens in China.
The one thing that is terribly misunderstood, and often ignored, by the western press and those critical of China is that 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.
A bit of historical perspective is important. In the mid-19thcentury, China fought two Opium Wars with the British, aided by the French, who forced through illegal trade of opium to China. A very weak Qing Dynasty government lost the wars and the result was the ceding of Hong Kong to the British as a colony.
The invasion of Chinese territories by foreign forces continued against a weak and defenseless Qing government, which precipitated in the Boxer Rebellion by Chinese peasants at the turn of the 20th century. In response, the Eight Nations Alliance – comprised of Japan, Russia, Britain, France, United States, Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary – dispatched their forces to occupy Chinese territories in the name of humanitarian intervention. The foreign forces marched into the Chinese capital Peking (now called Beijing), defeated the peasant rebels and proceeded to loot and pillage the capital city.
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. The war of resistance by the Chinese against Japan ended after tens of millions of Chinese casualties, and only after America joined the war against Japan post-Pearl Harbor.
I am going into all of this because a student of history will understand that the Chinese psyche has heavy baggage when it comes to any threat, foreign or domestic, to carve up Chinese territories.
When the topic of any separatist movement comes up, Chinese people feel a strong sense of shame and anger because of this history of foreign occupation.
By now I hope you can begin to understand why the Daryl Morey tweet is so damaging to the relationship with our fans in China. I don’t know Daryl personally. I am sure he’s a fine NBA general manager, and I will take at face value his subsequent apology that he was not as well informed as he should have been. But the hurt that this incident has caused will take a long time to repair.
I hope to help the League to move on from this incident. I will continue to be an outspoken NBA Governor on issues that are important to China. I ask that our Chinese fans keep the faith in what the NBA and basketball can do to unite people from all over the world.
Sincerely,
Joe Tsai
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/2955...The NBA's $5 billion operation in China has included not only merchandise sales but also efforts to develop young Chinese players. An ESPN investigation found that NBA employees complained about human rights concerns inside the training program.
Jul 29, 2020
Steve Fainaru
Mark Fainaru-Wada
LONG BEFORE AN October tweet in support of Hong Kong protesters spotlighted the NBA's complicated relationship with China, the league faced complaints from its own employees over human rights concerns inside an NBA youth-development program in that country, an ESPN investigation has found.
American coaches at three NBA training academies in China told league officials their Chinese partners were physically abusing young players and failing to provide schooling, even though commissioner Adam Silver had said that education would be central to the program, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the complaints.
The NBA ran into myriad problems by opening one of the academies inXinjiang, a police state in western China where more than a million Uighur Muslims are now held in barbed-wire camps.
American coaches were frequently harassed and surveilled in Xinjiang, the sources said. One American coach was detained three times without cause; he and others were unable to obtain housing because of their status as foreigners.
A former league employee compared the atmosphere when he worked in Xinjiang to "World War II Germany."In an interview with ESPN about its findings, NBA deputy commissioner and chief operating officer Mark Tatum, who oversees international operations, said the NBA is "reevaluating" and "considering other opportunities" for the academy program, which operates out of sports facilities run by the Chinese government. Last week, the league acknowledged for the first time it had closed the Xinjiang academy, but, when pressed, Tatum declined to say whether human rights were a factor.
"We were somewhat humbled," Tatum said of the academy project in China. "One of the lessons that we've learned here is that we do need to have more direct oversight and the ability to make staffing changes when appropriate."
In October, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey's tweet in support of pro-democracy protesters led the Chinese government to pull the NBA from state television, costing the league hundreds of millions of dollars. The controversy continues to reverberate, as the NBA prepares to resume play this week after a 4 1/2-month hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic. China Central TV recently said it still won't air NBA games, and U.S. lawmakers have raised questions about the league's business ties to China.
The ESPN investigation, which began after Morey's tweet, sheds new light on the lucrative NBA-China relationship and the costs of doing business with a government that suppresses free expression and is accused of cultural genocide. It illustrates the challenges of operating in a society with markedly different approaches to issues such as discipline, education and security. The reporting is based on interviews with several former NBA employees with direct knowledge of the league's activities in China, particularly the player-development program.
The program, launched in 2016, is part of the NBA's strategy to develop local players in a basketball-obsessed market that has made NBA China a $5 billion enterprise. Most of the former employees spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared damaging their chances for future employment. NBA officials asked current and former employees not to speak with ESPN for this story. In an email to one former coach, a public relations official added: "Please don't mention that you have been advised by the NBA not to respond."
One American coach who worked for the NBA in China described the project as "a sweat camp for athletes."
At least two coaches left their positions in response to what they believed was mistreatment of young players.
One requested and received a transfer after watching Chinese coaches strike teenage players, three sources told ESPN. Another American coach left before the end of his contract because he found the lack of education in the academies unconscionable: "I couldn't continue to show up every day, looking at these kids and knowing they would end up being taxi drivers," he said.
Not long after the academies opened, multiple coaches complained about the physical abuse and lack of schooling to Greg Stolt, the league's vice president for international operations for NBA China, and to other league officials in China, the sources said. It was unclear whether the information was passed on to NBA officials in New York, they said. The NBA declined to make Stolt available for comment.
Two of the former NBA employees separately told ESPN that coaches at the academies regularly speculated about whether Silver had been informed about the problems. "I said, 'If [Silver] shows up, we're all fired immediately,'" one of the coaches said.
Tatum said the NBA received "a handful" of complaints that Chinese coaches had mistreated young players and immediately informed local authorities that the league had "zero tolerance" for behavior that was "antithetical to our values." Tatum said the incidents were not reported at the time to league officials in New York, including himself or Silver.
"I will tell you that the health and wellness of academy athletes and everyone who participates in our program is of the utmost priority," Tatum said.
Tatum identified four separate incidents, though he said only one was formally reported in writing by an NBA employee. On three of the occasions, the coaches reported witnessing or hearing about physical abuse. The fourth incident involved a player who suffered from heat exhaustion.
"We did everything that we could, given the limited oversight we had," Tatum said.
Three sources who worked for the NBA in China told ESPN the physical abuse by Chinese coaches was much more prevalent than the incidents Tatum identified.
The NBA brought in elite coaches and athletic trainers with experience in the G League and Division I basketball to work at the academies. One former coach described watching a Chinese coach fire a ball into a young player's face at point-blank range and then "kick him in the gut."
"Imagine you have a kid who's 13, 14 years old, and you've got a grown coach who is 40 years old hitting your kid," the coach said. "We're part of that. The NBA is part of that."
It is common for Chinese coaches to discipline players physically, according to several people with experience in player development in China. "For most of the older generation, even my grandparents, they take corporal punishment for granted and even see it as an expression of love and care, but I know it might be criticized by people living outside of China," said Jinming Zheng, an assistant professor of sports management at Northumbria University in England, who grew up in mainland China and has written extensively about the Chinese sports system. "The older generation still sees it as an integral part of training."
In 2012, the NBA hired Bruce Palmer to work as technical director at a private basketball school in Dongguan in southern China, a program that predated the academies. The school has a sponsorship agreement that pays the NBA nearly $200,000 a year and allows the school to bill itself as an "NBA Training Center."
Palmer spent five years in Dongguan and said he repeatedly warned Chinese coaches not to hit, kick or throw balls at children. After one incident, he said he told a coach: "You can't do that to your kid, this is an NBA training center. If you really feel like hitting a 14-year-old boy, and you think it's going to help him or make you feel better, take him off campus, but not here, because the NBA does not allow this."
Palmer said the school's headmaster told him that hitting kids has "been proven to be effective as a teaching tool."
The issue was so prevalent in the NBA academies that coaches repeatedly asked NBA China officials, including Stolt, for direction on how to handle what they saw as physical abuse, according to three sources. The coaches were told to file written reports to the NBA office in Shanghai. One coach said he encountered no more issues after filing a report, but the others said the abuse continued.
"We weren't responsible for the local coaches, we didn't have the authority," Tatum said. "We don't have oversight of the local coaches, of the academic programs or the living conditions. It's fair to say we were less involved than we wanted to be."
WITH A POPULATION four times the size of the U.S., China is an exploding market for the NBA. The league's soaring revenues were propelled in part by the success of former Rockets center Yao Ming, who retired in 2011.
Tatum said the league sought advice from Yao and other experts in China on the development of its academy program. He also said NBA China's board of directors was briefed on the planning and placement of the three academies, including Xinjiang, adding that ESPN holds a seat on the board. An ESPN spokesperson said the network "is a non-voting board observer and owns a small stake" in NBA China, declining any further comment. (Games are streamed in China by internet giant Tencent, which also has a partnership with ESPN.)
Launching the academies had a primary goal for NBA bosses: "Find another Yao," according to two of the former employees who spoke with ESPN.
When Silver announced the plan to open three league-run academies in China in 2016, he said the goal was to train elite athletes "holistically."
"Top international prospects will benefit from a complete approach to player development that combines NBA-quality coaching, training and competition with academics and personal development," Silver said.
The league's news release announcing the academies said, "The initiative will employ a holistic, 360-degree approach to player development with focuses on education, leadership, character development and life skills."The NBA employees who spoke with ESPN said many of the league's problems stemmed from the decision to embed the academies in government-run sports facilities. The facilities gave the NBA access to existing infrastructure and elite players, Tatum said. But the arrangement put NBA activities under the direction of Chinese officials who selected the players and helped define the training.
"We were basically working for the Chinese government," one former coach said.
After his work in the NBA-sponsored facility in Dongguan, the league hired Palmer to evaluate the academies. He concluded the program was "fundamentally flawed." Palmer said it not only put NBA employees under Chinese authority but also prevented the league from working with China's most elite players.
In hindsight, Tatum said, the NBA might have been "a little bit naive" to believe the structure gave the league sufficient oversight.
In Xinjiang, players lived in cramped dormitories; the rooms were meant for two people, but a former coach said bunk beds were used to put as many as eight to 10 athletes in a room. Players trained two or three times a day and had few extracurricular activities. NBA coaches and officials became concerned that although education had been announced as a pillar of the academy program, the sports bureaus did not provide formal schooling. When the players -- some as young as 13 -- weren't training, eating or sleeping, they were often left unsupervised.
One coach said league officials who visited China seemed to be caught off-guard when they learned that players in the NBA academies did not attend school.
The NBA was able to work out an arrangement by which players at the academy in Zhejiang would be educated at a local international school. But similar efforts in Xinjiang and Shandong were unsuccessful.
Tatum said Chinese officials told the NBA that players at the academies would take classes six days a week in subjects such as English, math and sports psychology. He said when NBA employees later raised questions about whether the kids were in school, the Chinese officials reassured them they were.
But two former league employees said they complained directly to Stolt, who's based in Shanghai, that the players under their supervision were not in school.
Within the past month, as the NBA prepared to resume play in Florida, it began to face new questions about its relationship with China. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., sent separate letters to Silver questioning why the NBA is promoting social justice at home while ignoring China's abuses. The letters came shortly after China announced a new national security law in Hong Kong that gives authorities sweeping powers to crack down on pro-Democracy protesters. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also recently sparred on Twitter with Mavericks owner Mark Cuban over China.
Hawley's letter challenged the NBA for excluding messages supporting human rights in China among statements that players can wear on their jerseys. The approved messages are limited to social justice and the Black Lives Matter movement.
"Given the NBA's troubled history of excusing and apologizing for the brutal repression of the Chinese Communist regime, these omissions are striking," Hawley wrote in the letter, which was sent to media members.
One recipient, ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski, replied with a profanity, which Hawley then tweeted out to his 235,000 followers. ESPN and Wojnarowski issued separate apologies, and the reporter was suspended for two weeks without pay.
IN XINJIANG, THE NBA opened an academy in a region notorious for human rights abuses.
In recent years, the Chinese government has escalated its use of high-tech surveillance, restricted freedom of movement and erected mass internment facilities, which the government describes as vocational training centers and critics describe as concentration camps holding ethnic minorities, particularly Uighur Muslims. The government says the policy is necessary to combat terrorism. In September, the United States joined more than 30 countries in condemning "China's horrific campaign of repression" against the Uighurs. Reports of separatist violence and Chinese government repression in Xinjiang go back decades.
Tatum said the NBA wasn't aware of political tensions or human rights issues in Xinjiang when it announced it was launching the training academy there in 2016.
In the spring of 2018, the U.S. began considering sanctions against China over human rights concerns there, and the issue became the subject of increasing media coverage within the United States. In August 2018, Slate published an article under the headline: "Why is the NBA in Xinjiang? The league is running a training center in the middle of one of the world's worst humanitarian atrocities."
Later, the NBA would receive criticism from congressional leaders, but it never addressed the concerns or said anything about the status of the facility until last week.
Sometime shortly after Morey's October tweet, the academy webpage was taken down.
Pressed by ESPN, Tatum repeatedly avoided questions on whether the widespread human rights abuses in Xinjiang played a role in closing the academy, instead citing "many factors."
"My job, our job is not to take a position on every single human rights violation, and I'm not an expert in every human rights situation or violation," Tatum said. "I'll tell you what the NBA stands for: The values of the NBA are about respect, are about inclusion, are about diversity. That is what we stand for."
Nury Turkel, a Uighur American activist who has been heavily involved in lobbying the U.S. government on Uighur rights, told ESPN before the NBA said it had left Xinjiang that he believed the league had been indirectly legitimizing "crimes against humanity."
One former league employee who worked in China wondered how the NBA, which has been so progressive on issues around Black Lives Matter and moved the 2017 All-Star Game out of Charlotte, North Carolina, over a law requiring transgender people to use bathrooms corresponding to the sex listed on their birth certificates, could operate a training camp amid a Chinese government crackdown that also targeted NBA employees.
"You can't have it both ways," the former employee said. "... You can't be over here in February promoting Black History Month and be over in China, where they're in reeducation camps and all the people that you're partnering with are hitting kids."
Tatum said the NBA "has a long history and our values are about inclusion and respect and bridging cultural divides. That is what we stand for and that is who we are as an organization. We do think that engagement is the best way to bridge cultural divides, the best way to grow the game across borders."
The repression in Xinjiang is aimed primarily at Uighurs, but foreigners also have been harassed. One American coach said he was stopped by police three times in 10 months. Once, he was taken to a station and held for more than two hours because he didn't have his passport at the time. Because of the security restrictions, foreigners were told they were not allowed to rent housing in Xinjiang; most lived at local hotels.
Tatum said the league wasn't aware any of its employees had been detained or harassed in Xinjiang.
Most of the players who trained at the NBA's Xinjiang academy were Uighurs, but it was unclear to league employees who spoke with ESPN if any were impacted by the government crackdown.
After returning from Xinjiang last fall, Corbin Loubert, a strength coach who joined the NBA after stints at the IMG Academy in Florida and The Citadel, posted a CNN story on Twitter describing how the network's reporters faced surveillance and intimidation in Xinjiang.
"I spent the past year living in Xinjiang, and can confirm every word of this piece is true," Loubert tweeted. "One of the biggest challenges was not only the discrimination and harassment I faced," he added, "but turning a blind eye to the discrimination and harassment that the Uyghur people around me faced."
Loubert declined several interview requests from ESPN.
In a bipartisan letter to Silver last October after Morey's tweet, eight U.S. legislators -- including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Cruz -- called for the NBA to "reevaluate" the Xinjiang academy in response to "a massive, government-run campaign of ethno-religious repression."
Even though the NBA now says it had left Xinjiang in the spring of 2019, the league did not respond to the letter. The Xinjiang academy webpage disappeared soon after.
Last week, in response to Sen. Blackburn of Tennessee, the league wrote, "The NBA has had no involvement with the Xinjiang basketball academy for more than a year, and the relationship has been terminated."
John Pomfret, whose 2016 book, "The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom" covers the history of the U.S.-China relationship, called the decision to put an academy in Xinjiang "a huge mistake" that made the NBA "party to a massive human rights violation."
"Shutting it down was probably the smartest thing to do," he said. "But you can clearly understand from the NBA's point of view why they wouldn't want to make an announcement: Then you're just rubbing China's nose in it. What would you say, 'We're leaving because of human rights concerns?' That's worse than Morey's tweet."
Tatum said the league decided to end its involvement with the Xinjiang facility because it "didn't have the authority, or the ability to take direct action against any of these local coaches, and we ultimately concluded that the program there was unsalvageable."
Tatum said the NBA informed its coaches in Xinjiang that the league planned to cease operations, and coaches were then "moved out." But when Tatum was told that multiple sources had told ESPN that the NBA never informed the coaches of its plans to close Xinjiang, Tatum said he wasn't actually sure what conversations had taken place.
Two sources disputed that the NBA had any plans to leave Xinjiang in the spring of 2019. One coach said the league was still seeking other coaches to move there well into the summer and that the league's statement to Blackburn was "completely inaccurate."
"They were still trying to get people to go out there," the coach said. "It didn't end because [Tatum] said, 'We're gonna end this.'"
"They probably finally said, 'Why are we doing this?'" he continued. "Like we told them from the start, 'Why do we need to be here? We're the NBA, there's no reasons for us to be here."
https://6abc.com/sports/sixers-fan-suppo...
Sixers fan supporting Hong Kong ejected from preseason game amid NBA-China controversy
By Christie Ileto
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A fan was ejected from a Philadelphia 76ers preseason game against the Chinese squad Guangzhou Loong Lions on Tuesday night after holding signs and shouting support for Hong Kong.The incident came as the NBA finds itself connected to the ongoing protests in China.
Sam Wachs and his wife were holding signs in support of Hong Kong during the 76ers game at the Wells Fargo Center, but those signs were confiscated.
"There's no foul language, no politics.' I asked 'Why not?' They said, 'Don't give me a hard time,'" Wachs said in an interview with Action News.
Wachs admitted he then stood up and started yelling "Free Hong Kong" before being escorted out."I think it's shameful, harsh reaction," Wachs added.
On Wednesday, the 76ers issued a statement saying after "continued disruption," Wachs and his wife were removed from the game.
"The Wells Fargo Center's event staff is responsible for the security and comfort of all guests at arena events, including 76ers games. At last evening's game, following multiple complaints from guests and verbal confrontations with others in attendance, two individuals were warned by Wells Fargo Center staff about their continuing disruption of the fan experience. Ultimately, the decision was made by Wells Fargo Center personnel to remove the guests from the premises, which was accomplished without incident," the statement said.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/sixers-wel...
Wells Fargo Center adds ban on political signs amid NBA’s spat with China
by Rob Tornoe, Updated: October 24, 2019The Wells Fargo Center has quietly beefed up its sign policy to include a ban on political materials amid ongoing tension between the NBA and China over support for the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, just as the 76ers began their 2019-20 season.
Fans are allowed to bring signs, banners, posters, and flags into the arena, but on Wednesday, the policy was amended to ban content that staff at the center deems “political, ideological, or commercial in nature.”
The new policy, enacted before that night’s game, also now prohibits fans from hanging or taping signs over any part of the building, and bans the construction or display of any material that obstructs or interrupts the experience for other fans or guests.
Previously, the policy simply said that signs “may not be attached to stick/pole” and “must be in good taste.”
A spokesperson for the Wells Fargo Center said the policy change was part of regular updates that often happen at the beginning of a league season. The Sixers deferred comment on the policy to the Wells Fargo Center.
CBS3′s Alexandria Hoff initially reported that two fans were ejected by the center Wednesday because they were wearing shirts supporting the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. But Hoff later deleted her tweet, and a spokesperson for the arena said no fans were officially ejected from Wednesday’s game for China-related attire. Neither of the men responded to a request for comment.
During the NBA preseason, earlier this month, two fans holding “Free Hong Kong” signs were ejected from the stadium during an exhibition game against the Guangzhou Loong-Lions of the Chinese Basketball Association. A spokesperson for the center said that the two were ejected after being warned repeatedly about being disruptive, and that other fans around them were complaining.
This political statement at NBA games is NOT OK.
But this political statement at NBA games is OK.
This political statement at NBA games is NOT OK.
But this political statement at NBA games is OK.
