You HAVE to believe this girl was acting under direct orders from either Tad Brown or Tilman himself. I wonder how Tilman is taking the rebuke from his minders at the league office?
None at all. I'm saying the NBA hates Morey and the Rockets for getting them into this situation. Silver and the NBA may back the Morey and the Rockets publicly, but you just know they are thinking up ways to move the Rockets to Seattle.
It's misleading for the fact that they left out the backlash received when Harden said "We love China". Morey, standing for freedom and rooting for HK: spanked Harden, voicing his love for his Chinese fans: spanked Harden and Westbrook, silence because spanked x2: front page of CNN for being NBA lapdogs, and opponents of women's rights to speak and ask "pertinent" questions (optically of course) No one will call out that CNN reporter for showing up late. Harden was asked yesterday and he responded. Just b/c CNN shows up a day late doesn't mean they get a free quote.
Tracey is great! Been with the Rockets for quite awhile. VP of Media & Player Relations. She's the woman sitting at the scorers table next to the old couple. Here she is from last night's game Spoiler: last night's game fwiw: Here's a picture of Tracey Hughes protecting Jeremy Lin from the Mandarin horde... or was she censoring him? There was once a Tracey Hughes Appreciation Thread that Clutch quickly locked to protect her privacy. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/index.php?threads/tracey-hughes-appreciation-thread.281354/#post-10983327 "Tracey is awesome. I've known her for years and she is the best at what she does. Maybe you haven't seen her smile on TV but she has a great sense of humor. I appreciate your intention, Smacktle, because she deserves a lot of credit but I'm just locking this thread because I think it could get strange and I doubt she'd be comfortable with it." -- @Clutch Would be cool if we could resurrect that Tracey Hughes Appreciation Thread ... although, could be bad luck. haha...check out the Switching Harden/MDA for Westbrook/Donovan thread...lulz
Zero. Unless it was their beloved Lakers the NBA would have reacted the same had this happened to any other team.
VP of Media and Public Relations for the Rockets sounds like the best job. Get to travel with the team including to exotic places like Japan, gets to watch courtside at every game, and probably gets paid pretty well to boot. I want that job.
I completely believe Tim on this assessment... Harden and Westbrook wanted them to cut these questions off. It's a lose-lose situation to answer anything on the topic now that it has turned into an international incident. The more they talk, the more BS will be spawned from it, and the more money they stand to lose. Besides, the question was terrible BS anyway. It's not like sports journalists in general ask perceptive questions... just ask Popovich. Sports stars may have a big platform to stand on, and people may really really want them to use it, but the average sports star probably doesn't know much about Chinese history and this whole situation. Why in the world would they want to get involved?? Someone at work was telling me today how the NBA needs to abandon China... I told him he needs to burn all of his clothing, throw his iPhone and Macbook away, and never shop at a discount store of any kind in th future.
Yeah, I don't like getting the players involved, if they want to speak up on their own then absolutely they have that freedom, but I don't like the players feeling obligated to answer political questions that will obviously affect their personal brand, endorsements, fan support and mostly relationship with their freaking employer/manager. Harden and WB are paid to play basketball, not be political commentators. Also WHAT DOES JA THINK? WHERE IS JA?
Exactly. Sure, if they happen to be well informed then their opinion on the subject might matter but come on... wtf do most of these guys know about global politics???