how do you feel about da whole Hong Kong X China X NBA (and other US companies caught in middle) situation?

you're right but imo he likes to speak on these things and wants this spotlight
he's not the victim...he's a clout chaser

He's the most popular player in a league that is worldwide in terms of exposure. How much more spotlight can he get?
 
He said Morey was "only thinking about himself" and "wasn't educated on the situation". That sounds like a page straight from the Xi propaganda playbook.

And to follow that up with "could've waited a week to hit send". His comments are shocking in their ignorance and egocentricity. Very disappointing coming from someone like Lebron.

The league reprimanding any player, GM, owner, etc for comments like Morey's would be a horrible look. I'm not convinced that would be the case if it were a player who said it.
Cherrypicking. Divide and conquer, controlling the narrative. Ignoring context. In this, I hope LeBron has learned to keep it Black while discussing politics. Our community should be of utmost importance.
 
Umar claimed that he was told by some NBA Players out of Philly that they were specifically told to distance themselves from "Black Affairs."

I wouldn't doubt it honestly.

How often DO we really hear NBA dudes outwardly discussing BLACK issues and CALLING them BLACK issues?
 
Umar claimed that he was told by some NBA Players out of Philly that they were specifically told to distance themselves from "Black Affairs."

I wouldn't doubt it honestly.

How often DO we really hear NBA dudes outwardly discussing BLACK issues and CALLING them BLACK issues?

Dudes were willing to turn a blind eye to Donald Sterling's racism for DECADES. It was no secret that he was abhorrent piece of ****, but when the paychecks are good, folks are willing to tolerate just about any type of working environment.
 
Umar claimed that he was told by some NBA Players out of Philly that they were specifically told to distance themselves from "Black Affairs."

I wouldn't doubt it honestly.

How often DO we really hear NBA dudes outwardly discussing BLACK issues and CALLING them BLACK issues?
It's the OJ approach. Nothing new. The story and style comes from when Joe Louis was trying to get to fight for the heavyweight championship in the 30's. They made him promise to be a good boy in public before he'd be allowed to fight for the championship. Can't be too black, do not be seen with white women, never curse in public, never appear to be angry at white people. Be grateful.
 
So we ain’t gonna y’all about Lebron tap dancing
And sounding mad uninformed

he caught SUPER flack....i feel kinda bad for him sounding so off... someone should've told him da wheels was coming off when he was backing China against Hong Kong
 
And then folks would get on him for NOT knowing enough about the matter to comment on it You know how this game plays out man.

folks would've cut him slack if he would've kept it cute and politely decline comment, but directly criticizing someone showing support for democratic demonstrations against a communist regime? with da subtitle basically being "protect NBA china $$$" yeah, he deserved all da side eyes he got these couple of days.
 
folks would've cut him slack if he would've kept it cute and politely decline comment, but directly criticizing someone showing support for democratic demonstrations against a communist regime? with da subtitle basically being "protect HIS NBA china $$$" yeah, he deserved all da side eyes he got these couple of days.
Fixed
 
Yeah, Lebron just straight fumbled this one. On one hand I understand the concern of being concerned for his safety and money, while in China.

on the other hand I’m not sure he understands what’s going on in Hong Kong and China in general.

at best he’s an misinformed and ignorant to what’s going on and called somebody else out for being misinformed and ignorant

at worst he fully knows what’s going on and puts his millions over the human rights of millions in Hong Kong
 
You dont get to bully people into activism that appeals to you.

It's pretty plain to me that Lebron wants to focus his activism efforts toward blacks in America. That doesn't bother me and it shouldn't bother you.


except......he tweeted this.



his mentions is roasting him as we speak.


LAKERS
For LeBron James, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere … except in China
LeBron James concentrates before the Lakers play the Brooklyn Nets in a preseason game on Saturday in Shenzhen, China.
LeBron James concentrates before the Lakers play the Brooklyn Nets in a preseason game on Saturday in Shenzhen, China.(Zhong Zhi / Getty Images)
By BILL PLASCHKE
COLUMNIST
OCT. 15, 2019
11:23 AM
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The tweet from LeBron James was powerful, poignant and seemingly beyond all debate.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he wrote on Jan. 15, 2018, quoting Martin Luther King Jr. on his holiday. “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Yet on Monday, James gave the tweet a little tweak.

In tapping his inner mercenary, James revealed that even the sports world’s leading social equality warrior has his limits.

Sure, he said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere … except in China, because that’s where he sells truckloads of jerseys and shoes.

Fine, he said, our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter … except if those things can stop those checks flowing in from China, in which case, shut up!

Lebron Hong Kong Protest_LA_thmb.jpg
LAKERS
Anti-LeBron James demonstration takes place in Hong Kong following his Morey comments
Oct. 15, 2019
He didn’t exactly use those words, but his meaning was clear during a pregame media session before a Lakers exhibition game when he criticized Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey for a tweet that upset the Chinese government and brought the cowering NBA to its knees.

On Oct. 4, Morey tweeted: “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.”

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Morey was referring to the increasingly violent pro-democracy protests against the restrictive Chinese government that have taken place in semi-autonomous Hong Kong since June. The region’s freedom from total Chinese control, which is guaranteed until 2047, is slowly eroding every day, and its citizens are fighting to maintain some semblance of independence.

The Chinese government hated Morey’s tweet, which had an immediate effect on the NBA wallet. Chinese businesses pulled lucrative NBA sponsorships, stopped televising NBA preseason games, and basically turned a cold shoulder to last week’s visiting Lakers and Brooklyn Nets.

Then, on Monday, James joined the Chinese chorus.

LAKERS
Elliott: LeBron James makes it clear that good business with China overshadows other agendas
Oct. 14, 2019
“I don’t want to get into a [verbal] feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand, and he spoke,” James told reporters.

Morey wasn’t educated on what exactly? Was James really calling him ignorant for supporting those fighting against the slow invasion of oppression? Or, really, was he saying Morey wasn’t educated on how much money James and other NBA players and teams were losing by alienating the world’s largest basketball market?

“So many people could have been harmed not only financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually,” James said of the tweet’s effect. “Yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that, too.”

Note that in his list of “harms,” James begins with “financially.”

Cartoonist Jim Thompson offers his take on LeBron James’ recent comments on the NBA and China.(Jim Thompson / For The Times)
Also note the idea of him bowing at the altar of the almighty Chinese yuan by saying freedom of speech can “be a lot of negative.”

This is the same LeBron James who in recent years has become a national icon by freely speaking out against everything from racial inequality to police violence to racist remarks by President Trump? This is the same social leader who drew nationwide support when his free speech led an ignorant TV host to admonish him to “shut up and dribble?”

Doesn’t it seem like James just told Daryl Morey to shut up and run a basketball team?

The gross hypocrisy of James’ spoken comments Monday caused such a social media stir, he later tweeted out a clarification in which he claimed he wasn’t ripping Morey’s actual words, just his … timing?

“I do not believe there was any consideration for the consequences and ramifications of the tweet. I’m not discussing the substance,” James tweeted, later adding, “I think people need to understand what a tweet or statement can do to others. And I believe nobody stopped and considered what would happen. Could have waited a week to send it.”

Oh yes, of course, if Morey waits a week, then James and the NBA are allowed to fully market themselves to those millions of Chinese fans without rebuke or reprisal. If Morey waits a week, the Lakers and Nets can fly in, sell themselves down to their last shoelaces, then fly back home where they would find it easy to support Morey’s tweet with pockets bulging.

So freedom of speech is OK as long as it doesn’t inconvenience anyone? Yet back in 2012, on the afternoon of a game, James orchestrated one of his most powerful demonstrations when he and his Miami Heat teammates posed for a picture wearing hooded sweatshirts with heads bowed and faces hidden to protest the killing of teen Trayvon Martin.

LAKERS
Lakers in China: How the team and NBA navigated the crisis amid tumultuous week
Oct. 15, 2019
It was compelling, it was chilling, it was one of the most important moments of James’ career, and it didn’t matter that it took place just hours before the Heat tipped off against the Detroit Pistons. James has never championed for social justice by a clock or calendar, yet Morey should have waited a week?

To be fair, James isn’t the only one who’s been acting like a Chinese footstool. At the sight of the first Beijing frown, the NBA quickly rolled over and begged for forgiveness.

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Morey deleted the tweet and modified his comments. Commissioner Adam Silver issued a public love note to China that sounded so much like an apology, American lawmakers criticized him for it. The NBA allowed the Chinese to not only cancel all media availability with the Lakers and Nets, but even cancel Silver’s news conference, selling out not just their values, but their actual freedom of speech. Think about that message. Even when the politically tinged Olympics were held in Beijing in 2008, the athletes were not silenced.

By treating the Chinese government like its most influential owner, the NBA was shameful in ways that betrayed the league’s well-earned image of inclusion and tolerance and social awareness. Once the Chinese began to take punitive actions, Silver should have ordered the Lakers and Nets to immediately return home without ever playing a game there. The decision to allow them to essentially become pawns in a showcase of Chinese indignation felt, well, uneducated.

SPORTS
Granderson: China censoring NBA athletes? No surprise. But what about at home?
Oct. 12, 2019
We were reminded that, for all the wonderful ways the NBA deals with social progress, the NBA is still just a business.

And, let’s be real, LeBron James is first and foremost a businessman. That’s not a bad thing. He’s a darn good businessman. He’s a future billionaire mogul who has a powerful social conscience that he often uses to make the world a better place. But at the end of the day, he’s all businessman. It was business, not basketball, that brought him to the Lakers. And it is business that led him to publicly question the education of a man who simply issued a seven-word tweet in support of the fight for human rights.

James has long been considered above any of the barbs long directed at the likes of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, who were criticized during the height of their careers for remaining quiet on social issues to protect their economic interests.

Yet at least in one aspect of this incident, James is behaving exactly like Jordan, whose infamous alleged quote was resurrected Monday with a slight change in wording to fit the priorities of a tarnished king.

Chinese buy shoes, too.

LAKERS
Bill Plaschke
Bill Plaschke has been an L.A. Times columnist since 1996. He has been named national sports columnist of the year seven times by the Associated Press, and twice by the Society of Professional Journalists and National Headliner Awards. He is the author of five books, including a collection of his columns entitled, “Plaschke: Good Sports, Spoil Sports, Foul Ball and Oddballs.” Plaschke is also a panelist on the popular ESPN daily talk show, “Around the Horn.” For his community service, he has been named Man of the Year by the Los Angeles Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and has received a Pursuit of Justice Award from the California Women’s Law Center. Plaschke has appeared in a movie (“Ali”), a dramatic HBO series (“Luck”) and, in a crowning cultural moment he still does not quite understand, his name can be found in a rap song “Females Welcome” by Asher Roth. In case you were wondering – and he was – “Plaschke” is rhymed with “Great Gatsby.”
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What's Daryl Morey's position on reparations and complete freedom for the descendants of African slaves in America?!

You wanna get real? Let's get real. Here you have a WHITE man criticizing the actions of another government, while being a member of the privileged group that runs the united states of america. Of course there is wrong doing in regard to the china situation, but what in the 'ef is Morey saying and doing about what his privilege in america will oppress?

Many are focusing on LeBron, but it wasn't AFRICANS who went into asia, and then attempting to take over their land.

How is a white man from america, one who does not hold political office, going to ignore his own issues, then point the finger at others? It is exactly what LeBron spoke to, Morey's ignorance.
 
You dont get to bully people into activism that appeals to you.

It's pretty plain to me that Lebron wants to focus his activism efforts toward blacks in America. That doesn't bother me and it shouldn't bother you.
It bothers them due to their insecurity. Anytime a Black man or woman is in the position to help not only himself, but those who look like him, people who benefit from white supremacy want that Black person to try and save the world. Be the example of bootstrap theology. However, it only works against the Black man or woman if he or she is christian. That is how the guilt game comes about. You then are held to the standard of being about Jesus, and then not about being Black and Black empowerment.
 
It bothers them due to their insecurity


what da hell you talkin about b, LeBron James is catching da same flames Jay- z caught when he did that deal with the NFL, it's called hypocrisy.

I love LeBron, but if he wasn't going to keep it funky about Hong Kong then at least he should have never put his 2 cents on da Rockets GM situation at all and kept it cute.
 
The lack of nuance applied when a person is black vs when they're white.

Morey posted the tweet, then deleted and put out a statement. But everyone is focused on LeBron.

'Black people have to be the face of justice and the bearers of injustice.'

But it's to be expected.
 
This is only PART of what happened. LeBron confronted Adam Silver on Morey's comments, stating that if a player had made that tweet, the player would have been reprimanded. So LeBron's comments have come AFTER that confrontation, with Silver.

Let me make this clear, nobody in any other white run country is talking about what Black people have to face in America on the daily, since 1619. LeBron is correct in NOT speaking about what goes on there. Just like with the current supposed opioid crisis here in white america, nobody gave a damn about what was happening in the Black community during the crack era.

Y'all should learn to just say no.

Thoughts and prayers!
while I agree with what you are saying here, my main issue LBJ's statement is the fact that he's not using your reasoning as his justification to not speak on the matter. he is in fact speaking to the dollars that are being effected. which actually kinda hurt a little.

grew up in Chicago. big MJ fan. obviously hate LBJ. but was growing very fond of what I believed to be his courage to speak up on matters greater than him, something Jordan never did as a public/popular figure. I was actually beginning to think he was for the people. that's my own fault.
 
The lack of nuance applied when a person is black vs when they're white.

nah b, this definitely ain't a black & white issue..hell, if da Rockets GM was BLACK and let's say Kyle Korver would've said what LeBron said it would've made it WORSE, because keepin it a buck, LeBron sounded completely outta his realm...and he called da guy who was advocating for human rights uneducated and misinformed.

 
Hey, I don't have enough information on the topic to take a stance. I feel like, as a lifelong American citizen, I can't even conceptualize a lot of what it is that's going on over there. My opinion is shaded by american politics so of course my stance is for freedom, but I don't think any of us who haven't lived there for a long enough period are capable of speaking about it.

From what I've been able to pick up though, LeBron clarified that he was speaking in reference to players actually being in China while Morey is in the continental US making statements that could have put them at actual physical risk.

But I definitely haven't followed closely enough to take a stance or try to say someone was wrong here.
 
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