Absolutely. Ultimately, LeBron was basically calling Morey selfish while he pretty transparently was focused solely and selfishly on his business and financial interests.
Totally. Fuck LeBron. The NBA and their stars (so far both LeBron and Harden have made asses of themselves over this issue) really deserve a serious backlash for this shit. If I was Morey I’d be seriously tempted to make a bigger stand. If he were to say “I believe in democracy and I will always stand for those fighting for it even if it costs me financially. If the NBA or the Houston Rockets thinks this stance goes against what the league stands for they can fire or fine me. But either way I’m going to continue to speak up for what I believe in” what could they do? There would be an increase in the backlash from China of course but this is not an issue that’s going anywhere anyway so the NBA might as well face up to it now. The unavoidable reality of the situation is that the giant market in China is run by an anti-democratic and repressive government whose values clash with most Americans- and that includes many of the leagues coaches, general managers and players (at least the ones who have ideals beyond economic self interest and are educated enough to understand the issues)..
I guess LeBron's "more than an athlete" stance is more about his financial interests than a concern for human rights. LeBron's always been a phony, this is just him illustrating it for the world.
Entirely fair but I would argue that Morey deserves more ire. I know there are a lot of people who may disagree but tweeting about something is not taking a stand imho.
Twitter is calling him Qing James now. Which is funny but man, what a disgrace that statement is.
The Qing James line made me chuckle--this made me bust out laughing.
Not sure I agree with this. If someone tweeted about rampant social injustice, the employer might not like it but probably wouldn't do anything about it. I mean how many people were clamoring for divesting South Africa assets during apartheid?
Poor LeBron! What a tough week having to answer difficult questions.
You know for the longest time I tried to get people to understand (or at least think about) the MORAL implications of capitalism.
The “sorry to inconvenience you, LeBron” angle is getting lots of traction.
Yeah, this is just pathetic. When Colin Kaepernick protested police brutality in America, LeBron James was one of his most vocal supporters, tweeting “I stand with Kap. I kneel with Kap,”. Yet when Rockets GM Daryl Morey tweets support for the thousands of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong currently being brutally repressed by Chinese police, all of a sudden LeBron isn't so big on supporting the right to protest. Somehow LeBron now has the gall to call out Morey for being uneducated and not considering all that could be "harmed” by his words.What a total hypocrite...#QingJames
That’s overly cynical. Lebron has spoken out regarding American racism many times, and it’s reasonable to think those are truly held beliefs. Many people act differently regarding victims they can identify with versus those they can’t.
That's exactly what he was saying.
Truly held beliefs that he knew the majority of his fans and consumers agreed with.
Prior to the Kaepernick support, he had notably spoken up about racial justice before. "I can't breathe" t-shirts, Charlottesville comments, Philando Castile, Donald Sterling, Trayvon Martin... he didn't need a Nike deal to incentivize those comments. It's overly cynical to suggest that he wouldn't support Kaepernick without it.
And the wording reminded me a bit of this...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/osama-bin-ladens-translator-wanted-lebron-james-to-apologize-to-cleveland/
Even terrorists get this stuff.
Why would people who didn’t root for LeBron quit the NBA over him?
