Undeniably, Morey made a mistake.

I don't have to, in order to point out he was being an idiot and will face consequence on that.

I have my share of mistakes at work, none of them have cost my organization a contract so far.

 

Is there a threshold of autrocities a foreign government could do where you wouldn't care about burning bridges with them at a monetary expense?

Let's hypothetically pretend that Nazi Germany existed today and we knew about the Holocaust. Would you continue to be proud of not burning bridges over cute moral dilemmas then and helping maximize the profits of the company you work for?

 

Please point out, with fact, what "autrocities" a certain foreign government has committed, that Morey and Adam Silver should consider burning bridge with?

There's none. The only mistake on the table is Morey's

 

One of the largest autrocities occuring in this planet is the detention of 2 million humans, from children to adults being forcefully stripped of their religion and cultural identity and also in worst case scenarios having their organs harvested.

 

Was this where Morey had this point?
He should never have touched China if he believed that was the case. Nor anyone in US starting from Nixon.
But you suckers all have done it anyways.

I thought Trump had a backbone so we could play with that scenario. But well, he's breaking too

 

@Icepiano

Could you elaborate on why as a Chinese you want Hong Kong to be part of a communist regime when they prefer democracy?

 

What’s likely undeniable is that he did not intend for it to cause this many political shockwaves.

But to say it was a undeniably a “mistake” grants you a moral position you don’t deserve.

How do you know it was a mistake? Because people are angry? Because the NBA will lose money? Is that how we define mistakes now, not by their moral characteristics but by dollars and feelings?

The “hate” is almost entirely coming from one direction, and the rest of us are trying to deal with it like we would a screaming toddler. Very few Americans have a strong position one way or another on Hong Kong, but we all believe in each other’s rights to share those positions freely and openly.

But one manager of a sports team says something as benign as “fight for freedom” and an entire government decides to scrap a 20+ year relationship...that’s reasonable??

I am hardly a defender of US foreign affairs, but this idea that Morey should be blamed for sticking up for his principles and friends is repugnant and disgusting, and I’m not sorry if this offends anyone.

 

So Morey did something - well within his rights - without realizing or appreciating how some people may react on an emotional level to his actions...

There's gotta be a joke there somewhere about Morey using China like an 'asset' or something...

 

OK, I'm sure HK protesters disagree with you about whether Morey helped or not. I bet they're delighted with what he did.

As to your second talking point, which some posters have spammed all over reddit, can you give us some numbers on that financial hit? Something firm that you can back up?

 

Hold your horses, Ashley.

Just because you have a political agenda, doesn't excuse you for your terrible bball posts prior to this.

I still remember you having porous bball knowledge.

 

Come on now, some HK protestors might "feel good" about Morey supporting them, but every day there are tweets flying around both supporting and denouncing the protestors. Another tweet has negligible effect - Morey would have been better off spending at most 0.1% of his annual salary (estimated near $3m) buying a thousand umbrellas, gas masks, first aid kits, etc... for the protestors. He says he's worried about his friends' safety in HK, how about offering to fly them to the US or another country for a few months while this hopefully blows over? Who knows, maybe Morey's done something, but his tweet had no tangible impact (prior to blowing up thanks to Tilman).

And yes, a complete ban of the Rockets in China is going to cost sizable money. Tencent just reached a $1.5 billion deal with the NBA over streaming rights for the next 5 years. Hypothetically let's assume the Rockets are only worth 1/30th of that deal (they are not b/c they are a playoff contender with high playoff viewership and are a bigger draw in the eyes of China due to Yao and their partnership over the years). That's a low estimate of $50 million in censored dollars on viewership alone. Add in merch, for someone like Harden or Westbrook and now you're talking about individual rockets taking dollar hits. Is it a ton of money relative to how much the Rockets are worth? Well Houston's worth about $2B and make $326M in revenue each year, so it's a sizable amount but not enough to put Tilman on life-support.

Is Morey going to magically bring in an extra $50 million to offset his tweet? Unlikely.

 

As Rocket fans we don't care. Houston is big enough where there is no threat of the Rockets leaving the city for a more profitable one and we know our owner won't pay in to the luxury tax regardless of the revenue the Rockets generate so honestly I'm fine with Tilman making just enough revenue to have the Rockets stay in Houston.

 

I fking hate politics, it just create divisions among people.

FFS I just want to watch Rockets basketball not political dramas, you can watch CNN, MSNBC, FOX for that.

 

I’m just worried about DMO y’all

 

I agree, Rockets fans don't care - the whole attitude this board has about standing up to China, that's just posturing from our keyboards, just like Tsai is posturing, like Harden is posturing, like many shows on ESPN will posture today. In reality, nobody cares about making any meaningful impact in Hong Kong, as Rockets fans, we're just here to defend Morey, Tsai, Harden, and Silver are here to make money, politicians like Ted Cruz, Beto O'Rourke, and Julian Castro are just posturing to capture votes. Let's just call it for what it is, nobody is being altruistic to HK over here.

As a Rocket fan, I'd love to see sports separate from politics, and it typically is until someone from the sports world makes a political statement. Morey could have not said anything, and NBA fans would have not contributed any meaningful action towards the HK protest. Now that Morey has said something, NBA fans will talk about standing behind Morey, about how China commits atrocities (which they do) and still not contribute any meaningful action towards the HK protest. The same fans will continue to buy Nike or Adidas shoes, gobble up iphones, and willfully partake in globalized trade that largely benefits China.

 

The government of China made this a thing. Don't fool yourself. They didn't have to act like snowflakes over a tweet.

It's frankly frightening how Americans have to cater to the sensibilities of a foreign autocratic government because of the bottom line. The timing the the last South Park episode is uncanny.

 

How does this post go with the completely one sided ,100% certain, decision that Morey made a mistake? It's not rocket science, just think it through a bit.

 

I 100 percent agree with freedom of speech. However; as an employee of an organization you have to be prepared to possibly lose your job with comments that don’t agree / align with your employer’s views or political affiliation.

2018 article stated China accounts for 4 Billion dollars of revenue annually for the NBA. If anyone thinks any sports owner is going to be ok with losing out on that revenue doesn’t know how big business works. That’s why Harden and the league are apologizing. The citizens of China can want to buy all the want to...but if the government blocks it their not going to get it. If they do and get caught it could result in death or imprisonment.

China is a communist nation and what ever the Government says goes. As Americans we can disagree or call it whatever we want to...but nothing is going to change over there. Hell the US isn’t getting involved with Hong Kong because they don’t want to disrupt the trade market.

Hopefully, Morey stays and doesn’t get fired. If he does get fired I believe it will be a league decision amongst the owners.

 

They legitimately believe the protesters are all just lawless hooligans looking to break things with no legitimate grievences.

If you spend time in the D&D reading the different realities, people fed different input conditions develop different conclusions. Based on what they've been told, their conclusions make sense.

Even with our freedom of speech we end up with people limiting themselves to slanted data.