NBA fans are sending a message to the People’s Republic of China and the league that bent over backwards to oblige Chinese censors: no way you’ll censor us and we will continue with this Pro-Democracy Hong Kong protest for as long as it takes.
In the preseason, NBA fans touted their pro-Hong Kong paraphernalia and it was confiscated in many arenas across the country. In extreme cases, some of the fans were even ejected from the arena altogether.
And a pro-Hong Kong fan baited a cameraman on the NBA’s opening and it is one hilarious video.
It all began several weeks ago when Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted out his support for Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters, which was consequently met with disdain and disgust from the People’s Republic of China.
China prevented all of the NBA preseason games from airing in the country filled with 1.3 billion people.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver and superstar players scrambled to play cleanup after the controversy.
Houston Rockets star player and former MVP of the NBA, James Harden, actually apologized to China saying, “We apologize. You know, we love China. We love playing there. For both of us individually (Russell Westbrook beside him), we go there once or twice a year. They show us the most important love.”
When Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James finally spoke on the issue he said Morey was “misinformed” and calling him “selfish” on the issue alluding to the fact the players have a lot of money to lose. He’s not wrong either. James has a huge stake in Nike, Inc. and he also has “Space Jam 2” hitting theaters in the summer of 2020.
Nevertheless, James’ hypocrisy was in full force after being vocal on nearly every social justice issue. Why not China? There’s too much money at stake.
American fans probably won’t boycott NBA games but that doesn’t mean they can’t protest while they attend.
Fans have been kicked out or silenced right and left at the arenas.
Tuesday was opening night in the NBA. Thousands of fans attended the first game in Toronto where the defending champions received their rings and faced off against the New Orleans Pelicans. Many of them wore Pro-Hong Kong t-shirts. In fact, the vendors were handing them out for free before entering the arena.
The late game was the Los Angeles Lakers facing off against the Clippers in the Staples Center, which they both share.
One young Clippers fan goaded a cameraman into focusing on him and then pulled the old one-two switcheroo on them. At first, he held up a Clippers shirt but then revealed a “Fight for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong” shirt.
But the funniest thing is how the cameraman handled the situation.
the best clip to start the NBA season is this kid baiting the broadcast into flashing a “Fight for freedom stand with Hong Kong” sign on TV and then the cameraman pans away pic.twitter.com/B30ubY63CX
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) October 23, 2019
It’s almost as if you can hear the cameraman think “Oh no! This isn’t good. Who do I focus on now?”
But you know a producer was probably screaming to move away from the young bold fan.
There’s no word yet on a response from the Chinese government but they’re probably not happy at all about it.