Wow.
The @NBA now an official mouthpiece for Chinese State Propaganda.
cc @Jkylebass t.co/GsRWmLJl81— Paranoid Bull (@paranoidbull) October 7, 2019
— Global Chain (@global_chain) October 7, 2019
Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai says the damage from Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey’s tweet showing support for pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong “will take a long time to repair.”
Tsai, co-founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, said in an open letter posted on his Facebook page that he felt the need to address the matter as someone who had spent his professional life in China.
“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,” Tsai wrote.
On Friday, Morey tweeted a shout-out to protesters in Hong Kong.
“Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong,” Morey wrote in the now-deleted tweet.
The Chinese Basketball Association fired back its “strong opposition” to Morey’s “improper remarks regarding Hong Kong.”