Lots of National Basketball Association players head to China in the off season. It’s not just for the extra appearance cash; the sneaker companies tell them to just do it, as it were. NBA players sign enormous contracts with the athletic shoe companies, and brand marketing is part of the deal. The NBA, the shoe companies, and China’s state-controlled economy are closely linked.
Socially conscious NBA players also like to speak truth to power when it comes to identifying America’s flaws. They have vocally denounced President Trump.
But the perpetually virtue-signaling NBA has lost its voice when it comes to human rights abuses under China’s communist dictatorship, including its efforts to quash Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.
This deafening silence occurred after a tweet from the Houston Rockets GM ignited a furor right around the time of some NBA pre-season games in China being telecast by Disney-owned ESPN.
FS1 Speak for Yourself host Jason Whitlock summed up the NBA’s blatant hypocrisy (try not to be distracted by Cutino Mobley’s interjections):
“The NBA is strangling on its own hypocrisy, They’ve branded themselves the social justice league, the progressive league…Daryl Morey has tweeted out support of democracy. That’s something that I think most Americans have a consensus on. We believe in democracy, and we don’t believe in communism and repressive government…the NBA needs to be more honest about what it is…it’s a cold-hearted business, and there’s a ton of money to be made in China. That’s why every NBA player runs his ass over to China two or three times every summer to get the ‘bag.’ The NBA has been over there getting the ‘bag.’ That’s one of the reasons why NBA salaries have escalated to such a high level…Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich, LeBron James — nobody wants to visit the White House, everybody is very critical of the American government, but here we have a communist, repressive government, human rights violations out the ying-yang — Daryl Morey, an innocent little tweet here, and no one can stand by him for business purposes. So quit faking the funk and just be a business…
“The shoe companies control basketball, and the shoe companies are really in bed with China, and are really trying to get the ‘bag’ from China. All that some people are saying is, ‘cut it out NBA, Adam Silver, Steve Kerr. You guys are not political activists, you not social justice activists, you’re business people,’ because when China tells you to shut the hell up, everybody shuts the hell up. Everybody loses their courage when there is money on the line…”
Whitlock expressed similar sentiments on FNC’s Tucker Carlson Tonight:
“China’s l influence over a great American sport like basketball is just being exposed. Just how dependent the NBA is on the Chinese economy and Chinese money to put on the appearance of how great the league is doing. Without the Chinese money — and you really have to understand, the shoe companies, Nike, Adidas, they run American basketball…and the shoe companies are dependent on the China market. And that’s where all of this is coming from. You see NBA players constantly over the summer during their off season running to China to do the bidding of their shoe companies, and to sell their shoes in the China market….”
“And so the NBA is really being exposed as not nearly as much an American business as it is a global business, with China perhaps having more influence over it than even America….the cultural impact of this and what a great teachable moment it is for most American citizens…when people start talking about being a ‘global citizen,’ I don’t think people really understand what that means for American culture…for a lot of the everyday typical American sports fan, this is an educational experience. This is what people have been talking about. We can’t let our corporations, our country, being totally driven by China…we’re apologizing to the Chinese government, and then we have athletes here, and coaches like Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich, that rail against our government. We’re the bad guy in the minds of these NBA players and coaches, and they’re little parade of being so ‘woke.’ All of it, to me, is at the behest of the shoe companies. They’re doing the bidding of the shoe companies and protecting China, and demonizing us and our culture, and dramatically changing our culture…athletes…don’t don’t understand how they are being used and played to promote a communist, a Marxist agenda. They have no idea their actions and a lot of the things they’re promoting, this victim mentality, and all the identity politics, and, oh, ‘everything in America is racist’… it’s all a scam by the shoe companies — ‘look how socially aware we are, look how we fight against injustice.’ No; you’re actually doing a marketing ploy to pretend you have a social conscience, and you’re actually doing the bidding of the communist regime in China…these guys can rail against our government, our president, and be lauded for it. They don’t have the courage to speak out against a communist government, all kinds of human rights violations — it’s the epitome of hypocrisy and cowardice.”
And here you probably thought that a phony like the previously very opinionated Steve Kerr was merely pandering to the Trump haters in Silicon Valley.
As Carlson pointed out, “Steve Kerr is a cowardly corporate stooge.” FS1 analyst Clay Travis also went off on the sports industry’s pathetic failure to support the First Amendment.
Over the years, the multinational athletic apparel companies have been accused of running sweatshops in third-world companies.
As an aside, shouldn’t all these climate change activists taking advantage of the West’s freedom of speech traditions actually protest in China, which is perhaps the world’s foremost polluter?
Added: Warning about the “wokie-doke,” Jason Whitlock implies that China is leveraging gullible NBA players to bash America for geopolitical reasons, with the shoe companies as the go-between. President Trump separately commented on the NBA-China controversy.
[Featured image credit: PDPics/Pixabay]
