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

Yeah I really cant get down with everyone ****ting on lebron for not taking on communism on behalf of a GMs tweet. Could he have worded it better absolutely but its ridiculous that these players even have to face these questions in the first place while the one who started it gets to hide. It just exemplifies alot that is wrong with corporate america in my eyes. I've been super critical of lebron at times throughout his career but I'm glad he didn't let morey slide on this one even though the league did.
 
boris said:
You kind of have to pay taxes, or you risk going to jail. You have a choice to support certain companies.
Click to expand...
Really? We have a choice? There are certain companies that we DON'T have choice.

You like baseball? You had to support Fox Sports

You don't like Walt Disney monopolizing media? You like sports too? Choose
 
blackintellect said:
Really? We have a choice? There are certain companies that we DON'T have choice.

You like baseball? You had to support Fox Sports

You don't like Walt Disney monopolizing media? You like sports too? Choose
Click to expand...
So, to be clear, you think you are forced to give these companies your money? You have no choice? You don't HAVE to give these companies your money.

You can like baseball and not support MLB.
 
clyde the glide said:
Yeah I really cant get down with everyone ****ting on lebron for not taking on communism on behalf of a GMs tweet. Could he have worded it better absolutely but its ridiculous that these players even have to face these questions in the first place while the one who started it gets to hide. It just exemplifies alot that is wrong with corporate america in my eyes. I've been super critical of lebron at times throughout his career but I'm glad he didn't let morey slide on this one even though the league did.
Click to expand...

Why would the league punish Morey? I don’t like the guy, but Lebron and other players have been critical of Trump and airing him out. The league hasn’t said anything and they shouldn’t.

But I see how that could be deemed bad for business given conservatives and republicans watch basketball and spend money on the NBA. The nba hasn’t told Lebron to cut that stuff and it would be a bad look if they did. The same way though, Morey shouldn’t be getting any type of punishment for speaking his mind.

Now players being asked to comment on what Morey said. Those questions should’ve been shut down and not entertained from the jump. Only person who should be answering that stuff is Morey.
 
boris said:
So, to be clear, you think you are forced to give these companies your money? You have no choice? You don't HAVE to give these companies your money.

You can like baseball and not support MLB.
Click to expand...
To be clear, there are private companies that you support wether you want to or not. They are intertwined into our everyday lives.
 
blackintellect said:
To be clear, there are private companies that you support wether you want to or not. They are intertwined into our everyday lives.
Click to expand...
You'll notice that I quoted moderndarwin moderndarwin and said that they made a good point. I also just said you have a choice to support certain companies. You don't HAVE to support Fox Sports if you like baseball.
moderndarwin said:
Lebron is a hypocrite and so are the rest of us. He just gets more attention for it because he vocalized it. We all either directly or indirectly support something that we probably don’t agree with (morally) through our dollars and consumerism. Kobe’s probably gained more from Chinese partnerships than anyone but he’s not getting blasted by the media because he’s not voiced his lack of care / opinion.

Better to be honest and say yep there’s something going on but dollars are more important to me than this specific issue in some country far away.
Click to expand...
 
cedric ceballos said:
Why would the league punish Morey? I don’t like the guy, but Lebron and other players have been critical of Trump and airing him out. The league hasn’t said anything and they shouldn’t.

But I see how that could be deemed bad for business given conservatives and republicans watch basketball and spend money on the NBA. The nba hasn’t told Lebron to cut that stuff and it would be a bad look if they did. The same way though, Morey shouldn’t be getting any type of punishment for speaking his mind.

Now players being asked to comment on what Morey said. Those questions should’ve been shut down and not entertained from the jump. Only person who should be answering that stuff is Morey.
Click to expand...
I'm not necessarily saying they should punish although I have a hard time seeing a player lose the league this much money without any sort of repercussions. I just dont have a problem with lebron reminding everyone who started this nonsense while him and his peers are the ones who have to face the questions. You hit on it in the last part. Morey should be cleaning this up not lebron but that isn't whats happening. Typical corporate america. If a company has bad politics or a bad policy caused by management it's the frontline employees who actually deal with customers that have to deal with it and answer the tough questions. That ain't right imo and I like that lebron basically called management out. You wanna cost me money than expect me to fight your battle? Na no thanks I applaud lebron for not falling in line like most other players would have had to.
 
Shouts to Lushsux

75ob0nc0r9t31.jpg
 
clyde the glide said:
I'm not necessarily saying they should punish although I have a hard time seeing a player lose the league this much money without any sort of repercussions. I just dont have a problem with lebron reminding everyone who started this nonsense while him and his peers are the ones who have to face the questions. You hit on it in the last part. Morey should be cleaning this up not lebron but that isn't whats happening. Typical corporate america. If a company has bad politics or a bad policy caused by management it's the frontline employees who actually deal with customers that have to deal with it and answer the tough questions. That ain't right imo and I like that lebron basically called management out. You wanna cost me money than expect me to fight your battle? Na no thanks I applaud lebron for not falling in line like most other players would have had to.
Click to expand...

It’s a touchy situation to me. Because the NBA has been the more outspoken league when it comes to social issues in the US. I’m sure with that it’s caused them to lose fans and money, I’m pretty sure it also hasn’t damaged their bottom line and it’s brought positive PR as well. In that sense, it makes the NBA collectively as a league look selective when speaking out on domestic issues is ok, but they go on straight damage control mode over a single tweet toward a strict overseas regime. The league looks funny in the light in that perspective to me. Ironically, I don’t think the NBA speaking out on domestic social issues does damage to them financially the way it potentially could with the NFL with their fanbase having a bunch of good ol boy rednecks in it.

In terms of the damage control. The NBA should’ve just gave a bunch of non answers, things to say to deescalate the situation.

Entirely different situation, but when I was a teenager, loss prevention at my job physically abused the hell out of someone they thought was shoplifting but wasn’t. A lawsuit was filed, there was local media at the store. Us employees were under strict orders not to say anything to any media if they tried to talk to us on the matter. I wanted to get fired and collect unemployment so I talked to a few local media about what happened. I got canned the next day as planned lol.

As for Lebron. It’s disingenuous people who were tearing him a new one for talking about Trump and police brutality and are now using this as a means to discredit him and view him as a hypocrite. You can see right through that. But he gave that crowd ammo and talking points.

The China Hong Kong stuff isn’t Lebrons battle per say. I don’t blame him for being annoyed about being thrown in something that’s not his battle. But in my opinion he could’ve been more empathetic toward Hong Kong and gone without the calling Morey misinformed and uneducated while not messing with his China interests.

The uninformed and uneducated comment was just a bad look to me, especially knowing that people like Laura Ingram were pretty much using their platform to shame him and say the same about him not too long ago.
 
the criticism of LeBron on this issue appears widely cut across racial, social, and national lines. Not only a black/white America thing like usual LeBron criticism

people can have opinions on this without being against one side and for another. I think LeBron is being hypocritical here (who isn't at some point?) but also think Morey acted irresponsibly given his position and put the players in a difficult spot

the issue isn't LeBron implying Morey’s tweet hurt the NBA’s business interests. The concerning aspect is that he seemed to be suggesting Morey’s tweet was factually incorrect which in turn condones the status quo in China and HK (which he may or may not have realized). There is an argument in favor of the status quo in China and HK but that argument is pretty antithetical to LeBron's other positions
 
The REAL uncensored news y’all not getting



I just seen a pic of mans guts spilling out
 
WOKE?
LeBron James Bends the Knee to China, Fails His First Big Test as the NBA’s Conscience

OPINION
Zhong Zhi/Getty
The living basketball legend has been outspoken on Trump and Black Lives Matter, which is why his anti-democratic stance on China is so disappointing.

Corbin Smith
Updated 10.16.19 3:41AM ET Published 10.15.19 8:23PM ET
They are as schizoid, as double-minded in the massive presence of money, as any of the rest of us, and that’s the hard fact. The Man has a branch office in each of our brains, his corporate emblem is a white albatross, each local rep has a cover known as the Ego, and their mission in this world is Bad ****. —Thomas Pynchon

Last night, just when it started to feel like it may be coming to an end, LeBron James reignited the flame of the NBA’s ongoing China imbroglio when he spoke to reporters after practice.


A few weeks back, Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted a fairly benign sentiment in solidarity with ongoing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Morey deleted it fairly quickly, presumably having realized that his tweet might constitute a faux pas in the eyes of the notoriously sensitive Chinese government. The NBA does big business in China, a country with historical and cultural ties to the game of basketball and a deeply unnerving attachment to Kobe Bryant, in particular. Tilman Fertitta, a reality-TV star and the owner of the Rockets, issued an apology on Twitter, claiming Morey didn’t speak for the organization, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver sent out a contrite statement saying that Morey’s views didn’t represent the NBA’s or the Rockets’ feelings on the matter. After Silver was widely accused of not defending Morey’s free-speech rights, he issued a statement that affirmed that China would not have control over NBA employees’ right to free speech. As all this was happening, China began to put the economic clamps on the league, refusing to air NBA preseason games that were scheduled for state television in a naked effort to pressure the NBA into bending the knee.

While all this was going on, LeBron was in China to play a pair preseason games against the Brooklyn Nets, and not really addressing any of this with reporters. When he got back, however, he spoke to reporters and gave a compromised answer:

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LeBron James speaks for the first time since the NBA's trip to China, says Rockets GM Daryl Morey was "misinformed" about the ramifications of his tweet, and "not educated about the situation." Here are LeBron's comments in full:

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James insisted that Morey was talking out of turn, about something the MIT grad didn’t really know about, and that he should watch what he says or posts because it might reflect poorly on the league. There is a cadre of people who are disappointed in James, who has spoken on a lot of other, more familiar issues during his time in the league.


Over the last few years, LeBron has let his feelings about President Trump be known far and wide, regarding him with open contempt to every reporter who asks and famously calling the president a “bum” when he made ****ty political hay out of the Warriors skipping their White House visit. He called for gun control after another mass shooting in his home state of Ohio. He declared his support for the free-speech rights of Colin Kaepernick after the NFL began to blackball him from the league. And when Eric Garner was choked to death by NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo, he got his teammates to wear black shirts during the pregame, adorned with Garner’s finals words: “I can’t breathe.”


LeBron James
✔
kingjames kingjames
My team and this league just went through a difficult week. 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.

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It stands to reason that he would bring the same energy in the face of an ongoing soft-power flex by the Chinese government. No matter how you feel about the Chinese government’s relationship to Hong Kong (and Taiwan, and Tibet, and other places), it’s still tastelessly undemocratic to watch a country exert their will to silence dissent in a country where they are not supposed to have any political authority.

LeBron’s insistence, rooted in the argument that Morey’s brief, boring post about Hong Kong constituted a breach of manners that made unnecessary headaches for the league, feels like a capitulation to most people—a decision made with an eye toward the Chinese market. LeBron could have gotten in front of reporters and unwaveringly supported democratic values by saying that he supported Daryl’s right to free speech, then stepped off the podium and played Angry Birds in the locker room while he got his post-game massage. His decision to hedge in favor of China’s efforts to use economic pressure to limit free speech in America is, in no uncertain terms, a stain on his record as the conscience of the NBA—a role he has mostly excelled at during his time as the league’s best and most important player. It’s disappointing, for sure.


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But it’s also very telling.

In the aftermath of the interview, Celtics center Enes Kanter sounded off about LeBron’s stance, or lack thereof, on Twitter:


Enes Kanter
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@EnesKanter
SMH

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Enes Kanter
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@EnesKanter
?

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Kanter has been one of the NBA’s most fascinating players over the last few years on account of his outspoken stand against the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the authoritarian president of Turkey. In speaking out, Kanter has been subjected to all sorts of injustice at the hands of the Turkish government:


Enes Kanter
✔
@EnesKanter
-Haven’t seen or talked to my family 5 years
-Jailed my dad
-My siblings can’t find jobs
-Revoked my passport
-International arrest warrant
-My family can’t leave the country
-Got Death Threats everyday
-Got attacked, harassed
-Tried to kidnap me in Indonesia

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

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When the Portland Trail Blazers, Kanter’s previous team, made the conference finals last season, there was some concern about an NBA Finals’ matchup with the eventual champion Toronto Raptors, because Turkey had issued an INTERPOL arrest warrant against Kanter, and crossing the Canadian border would make him subject to their authority. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden interceded on his behalf, and it only ended up not mattering because the Blazers got swept by the Warriors.


Kanter’s obstinacy in the face of tyranny is very moving—and very American. When we are young children, in class, we learn about the Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, the war we fought to free the slaves, how the Founding Fathers wrote down our ideals and then their descendants slowly learned to actually implement them, one by one. We are told that democracy governs our world, and that we should seek to evangelize its light to all who listen, and that capitulation in the face of tyranny is loathsome.

But then we become adults, and we learn about who actually governs our world: the long, smelly, endlessly-adaptable blob of capitalism. Capital gets you fed, puts clothes on your body, determines where you can buy a sleep, how you get places, what the nicest phone you can afford is, and, as it turns out, it has far fewer ideals than it’s so-called partner, democracy.

When the United States allowed China to join the World Trade Organization in 2001, the U.S. insisted that free exchange of capital would bring democratic ideals to the world’s largest nation. This didn’t end up happening. Instead, China’s government has let foreign money in on its own terms, kept out any company that might pose a threat to its stranglehold on regulating speech, expanded its imperial ambitions, and pursued a terrifying surveillance state out of the technology the rest of the world sells to them—all while Western corporations, supposedly operated by people who grew up on democratic ideals, buy and sell and build and invest there.

“Their outrage seems rather narrow considering how complicit everyone in the developed world is—including their constituents, their donors, the lobbyists they talk to everyday, the think tanks that develop the legislation they introduce.”

Various grandstanding politicians across the political spectrum have expressed open disdain for the NBA’s response to all this. It makes sense, of course: it’s a pretty easy thing to grandstand on. But their outrage seems rather narrow considering how complicit everyone in the developed world is—including their constituents, their donors, the lobbyists they talk to everyday, the think tanks that develop the legislation they introduce. China has become an essential building block in the global supply chain that keeps everyone clothed and on iPhones every day, and has made itself into capital’s darling growth market; the home of a gold rush that is drawing piles of money and tax revenue and economic attention, all without embracing anything that could reasonably be called a democratic value.

The NBA isn’t even the most powerful sports-related entity that’s found itself catering to the cravings of moneyed autocrats. In the last 20 years, the IOC has stuck the Olympics in Beijing and Sochi, and will be returning to Beijing for the Winter Games in 2022. FIFA is gearing up to hold the 2020 World Cup in Qatar, of all places, where teams all over the world will play the beautiful game in stadiums built in deadly temperatures by slave labor.

It’s easy to get mad at LeBron James for doing what the world he’s lived in his entire adult life has taught him to do. And honestly, we probably should. He is more than rich enough that he should not stand in front of reporters and provide cover for the soft-power flexing of an autocracy that is imposing its narrow idea of acceptable political expression on a country where freedom of speech is supposedly a core value. Enes Kanter, who came to America from a country where freedom of political expression is not necessarily a given, understands that you have to make sacrifices in the pursuit of liberty.

For most of his career, any statement LeBron has made about the world around him, many of which were affecting and clearly deeply felt, has been met with near-universal praise. He’s a woke athlete in a time when standing up for your values doesn’t hurt the balance sheet. But when push comes to shove, we see that he, like so many of us, is a product of the real values living in America teaches you, what our economy rewards, the personal pursuit of the never-ending expansion of capital. If we actually want to show the world we value democracy, we need to start by teaching our economic system to feel the same way

www.thedailybeast.com

LeBron James Fails First Big Test as the NBA’s Conscience

The living basketball legend has been outspoken on Trump and Black Lives Matter, which is why his anti-democratic stance on China is so disappointing.
www.thedailybeast.com
 
www.nytimes.com

LeBron James Faces Backlash Unseen Since ‘The Decision’ (Published 2019)

The issues of China and protests in Hong Kong are far different from N.B.A. free agency. But nine years later, James, himself, has also changed.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

LeBron James Faces Backlash Unseen Since ‘The Decision’
The issues of China and protests in Hong Kong are far different from N.B.A. free agency. But nine years later, James, himself, has also changed.

Image
Protesters hold photographs of LeBron James in Hong Kong on Tuesday.
Protesters hold photographs of LeBron James in Hong Kong on Tuesday.CreditAnthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Sopan Deb
Oct. 15, 2019
It has been almost a decade since the last time LeBron James faced widespread backlash.

Fans in Cleveland burned his jersey. They threw rocks at a billboard with his face on it. James was maligned as a narcissist by Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, in a letter that was widely mocked.

And all James did then was announce on national television that he was going to a different team.

That was in 2010, when James, after seven seasons in Cleveland, said during a special on ESPN titled “The Decision” that he was taking his talents to Miami, to play for the Heat.

The backlash for that was far different from what James, now a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, faces after saying that Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, “wasn’t educated on the situation at hand” when he posted and then deleted an image on Twitter supporting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. It caused an international row with the authoritarian Chinese government, and now threatens the partnership between the N.B.A. and one of its most important international markets. Several Chinese companies cut ties with the Rockets.

James further incensed his critics when he added: “Yes, we do all have freedom of speech. But at times there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you’re not thinking about others and you’re thinking about yourself.”

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He was denounced immediately, particularly across social media. It was an unusual position for one of the most popular athletes in the world. Multiple lawmakers, including Rick Scott and Josh Hawley — two Republican senators — criticized James for seemingly blaming Morey for the Chinese government’s actions. Even a fellow player, Enes Kanter, a center for the Boston Celtics known to be politically outspoken, posted tweets that appeared to be directed toward James without naming him. One said: “FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.”

James, one of the greatest players in N.B.A. history, tried to clarify his comments with posts on Twitter, saying that Morey did not consider the “ramifications of the tweet” and that “my team and this league just went through a difficult week.”

It didn’t help.

In Hong Kong, protesters burned James jerseys, shot baskets at a hoop with his face on the backboard, and turned images of him into memes — including a depiction showing him embracing Chinese cash.

Image
In Hong Kong, protesters turned images of James into memes — including a depiction showing him embracing Chinese cash.
In Hong Kong, protesters turned images of James into memes — including a depiction showing him embracing Chinese cash.CreditVivek Prakash/EPA, via Shutterstock
The breadth of the criticism was unusual. On a section of Reddit for Lakers fans, hundreds, if not thousands, of comments offered scathing words for James. One post read, “Regardless of what Lebron’s real intention behind his words on Morey, he definitely messed up.” Several accused James of cowardice.

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Speaking at practice on Tuesday, James said he was aware of some negative reaction toward him but did not feel a need to connect with every global geopolitical issue.

“I think when the issue comes up, if you feel passionate about it or you feel like it’s something you want to talk about, then so be it,” James said. “I also don’t think that every issue should be everybody’s problem.”

The scope of the backlash, compared with “The Decision,” is different for several reasons. One issue holds global importance, and involves a nexus of politics, sports and business. The other played out mostly among basketball fans, though it changed the way that star N.B.A. athletes viewed their own leverage in free agency.

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Nine years after “The Decision,” there are other cultural forces at play: Social media use is much more ubiquitous. And more than that, James is different, in part because of that backlash from nine years ago. He’s a more powerful athlete, a global superstar with three N.B.A. championships and a settled legacy. His business empire has expanded past basketball and into entertainment, with his name helming dozens of television and film projects. James went from a great player to a business titan, who made activism on certain social issues a part of his empire. All of that has combined to build him into a figure with arguably unparalleled influence in the history of the league.

But in some ways, James’s history with activism has been as enigmatic as it has been common. Fans who accused James of cowardice also charged him with hypocrisy. James has carefully cultivated an image of willingness to engage with political issues throughout his career, including stands on police shootings and a high-profile endorsement for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016. Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California, appeared on James’s HBO show, “The Shop,” to sign a bill that would allow athletes to seek endorsements and other deals, another bit of careful brand cultivation for James.

On the premiere of “The Shop” in 2018, James didn’t eschew a comparison to one of his idols, the boxer Muhammad Ali, a famed social justice crusader. In fact, James suggested he didn’t care about backlash and that his popularity had declined when he started speaking out on various issues.

“He knew that it wasn’t about him,” James said, referring to Ali, adding that Ali knew that he would receive backlash and might go to jail.

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Image
LeBron James, one of the greatest players in N.B.A. history, tried to clarify earlier comments with posts on Twitter, saying that Daryl Morey did not consider the “ramifications of the tweet.”
LeBron James, one of the greatest players in N.B.A. history, tried to clarify earlier comments with posts on Twitter, saying that Daryl Morey did not consider the “ramifications of the tweet.”CreditAnthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
James has previously been criticized for initially keeping silent about certain issues, such the 2014 shooting in Ohio of a 12-year-old African-American boy, Tamir Rice, by police.

Early in his career, James received blowback for declining to sign a letter circulated by his teammate Ira Newble criticizing the Chinese government for its support of the Sudanese government in relation to the armed conflict in Darfur, in which hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed.

But the next year, in 2008, James spoke out about Darfur on ESPN: “At the end of the day we’re talking about human rights. And people should understand that human rights and people’s lives are in jeopardy. We’re not talking about contracts here. We’re not talking about money. We’re talking about people’s lives being lost and that means a lot more to me than some money or a contract.”

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And yet, the potential harm to James’s business interests caused by Morey’s Twitter post cannot reasonably be separated from his criticism of the general manager. He said he had been to China more than a dozen times in his career — usually with the league or one of his corporate sponsors like Nike, which counts China as its third largest market.

James also has more to lose in China than just sales from shoes or other basketball-related merchandise: His entertainment projects, like “Space Jam 2,” may be distributed in China, a significant market for Hollywood production studios like Warner Bros. and similarly for James’s brand itself.

DreamWorks Film ‘Abominable’ Is Pulled by Vietnam Over Chinese Map SceneOct. 15, 2019
image
However, James may have helped the N.B.A. On the Chinese mainland, his comments have been met with enthusiasm. That the most famous basketball player in the world has, by some interpretations, lent support to the Chinese government’s position over that of an American basketball executive will not hurt in maintaining relationships — and profits — for basketballers in China.

After all, the Chinese buy sneakers, too.
 
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