2019 Rockets: China Hates Us

lexrageorge

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Silver has to show he's willing to protect his employees. If the Chinese government was truly insisting that Morey be fired, and continued to make that demand, then there is no further negotiating to be done on the matter. I have difficulty believing Silver was lying; if the owners were to find out, he would be sacked immediately.

EDIT: As for going public, he may be getting pressure from sponsors that are seeing their business impacted, and this is one way to deflect that pressure away from him and onto China.
 
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Big John

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Dec 9, 2016
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Actually this is a better depiction of LeBron's China stance:
https://www.creators.com/read/gary-varvel/10/19/264687
Silver's recent statements about damages and his decision to go public with the Chinese request to fire Morey lead me to believe that there is an associate in one of the big firms that does work for the NBA who is currently researching the Foreign Soverign Immunities Act of 1976-- just in case.
 

Reverend

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I’m trying to learn to use Twitter in other languages. because I’m kinda an idiot.

Anyway, I found a couple of articles on the NBA/Morey stuff from the POV of a pubs aimed at a Chinese speaking audience. I thought they might be of interest here; there are some interesting commonalities, and it’s neat to see how they frame and explain it.

Basically, I got bored of seeing almost nothing new being written on what happened. This is a little different.

Chinese publication in English:
https://www.jqknews.com/news/295155-Xiao_Hua_NBA_is_a_huge_loss_It_is_impossible_for_China_to_dismiss_Morey.html
French publication in Chinese (google translate link):
https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://www.afpbb.com/articles/-/3250090?act=all&xid=17259,15700021,15700186,15700191,15700256,15700259,15700262,15700265,15700271&usg=ALkJrhiauyH-yi9FGgT9OOiqsXUlFTJDKA
 
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Big John

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So, are the "Stand with Hong Kong" T-shirts that Nets fans are wearing at games and the 30,000 pro-Hong Kong T-shirts that will be passed out at the Raptors home opener also manufactured in China?
 

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jose melendez

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One reason for Silver to say it would be if China was continually hounding him to discipline Morey. If he felt that the issue was settled and China wasn't listening then going public ends it right there.

Another reason could be that Silver is human and humans sometime make mistakes, even successful ones.
Counter point, it forces the issue. It makes it very hard for owners to pressure silver to cave.
 

Reverend

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Morey is esentially the most expensive executive in professional sports history.
Well, yeah. And I think most of us agreed we had to give LeBron a bit of a break for being flustered about losing a quarter of a billion dollars in lifetime earnings or something.

But now China is signaling they will make decisions based on non-financial considerations.

So maybe they’re full of shit and really it’s the long run play that people have a firm grip on power can play. But they are at least claiming to be making a principled stand. To the extent that they make that claim, we can judge them on their alleged principles.

And they fucking suck.

I mean, that statement doesn’t even grasp what free speech is, not that they really care anyway. Which is sorta the point.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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Money is important, even to communists. And there is enough money in this deal for the NBA and China.

Let's see if this threat is followed by action or not before we start to calculate the salary cap for next year. If the past two years haven't taught us about posturing then we have more lessons to learn
 

benhogan

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Money is important, even to communists. And there is enough money in this deal for the NBA and China.

Let's see if this threat is followed by action or not before we start to calculate the salary cap for next year. If the past two years haven't taught us about posturing then we have more lessons to learn
Yea, this is the next shoe (Nike?) to drop in this mess. This is the part that will affect the Celtics and all the NBA teams next season.
1. when do the Chinese yuan checks stop getting mailed to the NBA?
2. how large are they?
3. how does it affect the 2020 salary cap?

The outcome if Chinese revenue does get cut off:
1. 2020 sparse free agency class will have fewer bidders (maybe none)
2. there will be a bunch of teams looking to offer high-quality players, for next to nothing, so they can avoid the luxury tax

Tencent (a sizeable publicly listed company) has an NBA TV deal, do they just stop paying, cut off the transmission and let the Chinese NBA fans go back to pirating games (in essence stealing NBA IP) online. While Trump has been publicly posturing, the US has been collecting (in the words of Donnie) "billions and billions of beautiful tariffs on Chinese made products" . On Friday, Chinese GDP growth hit 30-year lows. The trade war has moved past posturing.

The Chinese are looking to retaliate against the US, and slapping the NBA does the trick. Even worse for Silver/NBA is Trump will sit back and enjoy watching the NBA squirm. Trump may even use the NBA as a Twitter pinata, daring the Kerrs', Pop, Bron to come out and support freedom of speech and anti-Chinese rhetoric.
 
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Reverend

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Yea, this is the next shoe (Nike?) to drop in this mess. This is the part that will affect the Celtics and all the NBA teams next season.
1. when do the Chinese yuan checks stop getting mailed to the NBA?
2. how large are they?
3. how does it affect the 2020 salary cap?

The outcome if Chinese revenue does get cut off:
1. 2020 sparse free agency class will have fewer bidders (maybe none)
2. there will be a bunch of teams looking to offer high-quality players, for next to nothing, on deals that take them into the luxury tax situation.

Tencent (a sizeable publicly listed company) has an NBA TV deal, do they just stop paying, cut off the transmission and let the Chinese NBA fans go back to pirating games (in essence stealing NBA IP) online. While Trump has been publicly posturing, the US has been collecting (in the words of Donnie) "billions and billions of beautiful tariffs on the Chinese made products" . On Friday, Chinese GDP growth just hit 30-year lows.

The Chinese are looking to publicly retaliate against the US, and cutting off the NBA does the trick. Even worse for Silver/NBA is Trump will sit back and enjoy watching the NBA squirm.
Pompeo sticking his thumb in this probably does the NBA no favors, too.
 

johnmd20

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Well, yeah. And I think most of us agreed we had to give LeBron a bit of a break for being flustered about losing a quarter of a billion dollars in lifetime earnings or something.

But now China is signaling they will make decisions based on non-financial considerations.

So maybe they’re full of shit and really it’s the long run play that people have a firm grip on power can play. But they are at least claiming to be making a principled stand. To the extent that they make that claim, we can judge them on their alleged principles.

And they fucking suck.

I mean, that statement doesn’t even grasp what free speech is, not that they really care anyway. Which is sorta the point.
Seriously. China is coming off terribly here, not that they care. They have control, in China, and they are exercising that control. But it has limits. If anything, I am glad this happened because it shows the hypocrisy of China. They are so firm in holding the line, they are flying off the handle over a single tweet. And this is completely flying off the handle.

You cannot tell an American organization to fire an American employee because you're frustrated a tweet highlighted the human rights violations China is perpetrating.

If this tweet was ignored, it would never have been a story. Now it is the story in the NBA right now.
 

Big John

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The amount of money involved is China's spat with the NBA is miniscule compared with what losing Hong Kong would cost. What is China doing? They cut a deal in 1999 saying that Hong Kong would retain its freedoms for 50 years. As early as 2003, they tried to curtail those freedoms. There were massive demonstrations then, and China backed off. They tried again in 2018, and then in 2019 with their extradition law, which they were also forced to withdraw. Hong Kong's economy is going great guns, and all of China benefits. Why are they trying to kill the golden goose? Their battle with Morey and their threats to retaliate against the NBA (which may lead to breach of contract lawsuits) have generated huge amounts of sympathy around the world for the Hong Kong protesters. It's just idiotic.
 
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Euclis20

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Seriously. China is coming off terribly here, not that they care. They have control, in China, and they are exercising that control. But it has limits. If anything, I am glad this happened because it shows the hypocrisy of China. They are so firm in holding the line, they are flying off the handle over a single tweet. And this is completely flying off the handle.

You cannot tell an American organization to fire an American employee because you're frustrated a tweet highlighted the human rights violations China is perpetrating.

If this tweet was ignored, it would never have been a story. Now it is the story in the NBA right now.
From China's perspective here, it's not just about the NBA. They aren't costing everyone all this money because of a tweet, they are doing this to prevent future business partners from speaking out. Sure they look terrible and lots of attention is being drawn to this, but their hope is that it eventually blows over only to be remembered by future business partners what the punishment is for any words spoken against China. As Big John notes the money the NBA brings in is small potatoes compared to Hong Kong.

Their response is awful but I'm not sure it's not going to end up as a win long-term for China.
 

lovegtm

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Seriously. China is coming off terribly here, not that they care. They have control, in China, and they are exercising that control. But it has limits. If anything, I am glad this happened because it shows the hypocrisy of China. They are so firm in holding the line, they are flying off the handle over a single tweet. And this is completely flying off the handle.

You cannot tell an American organization to fire an American employee because you're frustrated a tweet highlighted the human rights violations China is perpetrating.

If this tweet was ignored, it would never have been a story. Now it is the story in the NBA right now.
If you fly off the handle over a single tweet, others extrapolate to how you will handle more serious matters. It’s to your benefit to exert influence and show seriousness early and in trivial matters.

Americans have been sheltered from geopolitical exigencies since 1945, and we don’t have a great understanding of multilateral power relations.
 

lovegtm

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And China hasn't?
Ummm...no? This isn't a terribly controversial statement--America won WWII and had the only unscathed economy, while China was invaded in the 30s and 40s, then went through a civil war, the Cultural Revolution, and the rebuilding of their economy. They've developed a lot more expertise in making the best of their situation, rather than simply being on top by default.
 

IdiotKicker

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There are two really important dynamics that inform what is happening right now with regards to the NBA and China. The first is that the Chinese government does not believe in the ability of its citizens or businesses operating within its borders to criticize the government. The second is that unlike in the United States, the NBA is dealing with businesses in China that are likely either owned by the government or directly report to the government. I don't think this is about showing seriousness early on in order for others to extrapolate what might happen with bigger items. That extrapolation may happen anyways, but it's not a core component of what is happening. Rather, it is the Chinese government dictating the terms of how to do business in China, and they don't want criticism of the Chinese government or support for those who criticize it to exist within their borders or on platforms that are accessible within their borders.

It looks different and weird to us because most companies in the US don't have any direct, or even indirect affiliation with the US government, and because the US government allows for public dissent for its citizens and companies. Most of your large companies in China take orders from the CCP in one way or another, and so the immediate ability to cancel all of these deals, as well as telling the NBA to fire an employee for a tweet make sense when viewed in that context, because in China, the govenrment would tell a company to fire and employee and it would be done. If you want evidence of this, look at what has happened at Cathay Pacific in the last couple months.

Look, as rev said above, this whole incident has yanked back the veil for many people on how the CCP operates. I still have real doubts as to whether other companies start to follow suit in pushing back on this kind of censorship, just because there are so many companies with a boatload of revenue coming from China that would have their stock prices decimated if they had to give up access to that market. While I'd like to see them do so, I'm not the one making the sacrifice there, so I get it if they don't do anything. Just tell us you're about the money and most people won't care in the long run. I do know there's a decent amount of supply-chain reorientation that has already been going on, and I would anticipate smart executives will accelerate that, even though there's no manufacturing market in the world with the scale or infrastructure that China has, so it's going to result in additional costs, even if you can move the work elsewhere. I don't know if this movement has staying power of if it's just a quick burst of energy, but it is fascinating to watch the dynamics.
 

Big John

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We know that the CCP doesn't like criticism, and that China has its own brand of state supervised capitalism. But where does that leave the issue of Hong Kong and Macau? Capitalism in Honk Kong and Macau operates on a more Western model (the slogan in 1999 was "one country, two systems") in large measure because even the CCP knew that to impose its brand of state supervised capitalism in those two former colonies would create economic chaos. The real issue for China here isn't stifling dissent by U.S. corporate executives, it's what to do about Hong Kong. Obviously they are coming down hard on the "one country" side of that equation, but the CCP can't stifle dissent there by sending in the tanks, as it did in Tianaman square. HK is a technologically and economically evolved city-state with 7 million people--not a few hundred student protesters with fax machines. The majority of the people in HK want to be Singapore, not Shanghai. By overracting to a tweet, the Chinese are making the process of assimilation that much harder and more expensive for themselves, and in the worst case, increasing the degree of international support for a truly independent Hong Kong.
 
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Spelunker

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I would assume Taipei is watching this very closely. Is there any news recently about them trying to maintain/expand their own autonomy? I haven't been able to find much, besides the normal background noise.
 

Montana Fan

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I agree that China is, well, China, but would Silver have come off of his initial stance of regret, that Morey was uneducated and should not have offended the people of China, had there not been such overwhelming response of support for Hong Kong by the vast majority of Americans?
 

Kliq

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So far Houston has exceeded my expectations, sitting at 7-3. The bad news is that they have managed to beat absolutely no one despite playing in West, with their wins being New Orleans twice, OKC, Washington, Chicago, Memphis and Golden State. Defensively they suck, currently in 20th in Def. Rating. Offensively they are very good, third in Offensive Rating. The good news is that the Harden/Westbrook pairing has worked out well so far, Harden is averaging 37-5-8 and an absurd 15 fta per game (he is making 13 FTs a game). Westbrook is averaging 22-9-7 and is scoring at a much more efficient rate than in the past; he is still horrible from three but his eFG% of 50% would be a career high. He is shooting 56 percent on two-point FG% so if he could JUST STOP SHOOTING THREES he would be really efficient.

Another optimistic point is that Harden, Westbrook and Gordon are attempting a combined 26 threes per game, and shooting 29%/21%/28%on them respectively. I'd be surprised if they all shot that poorly for the entire season, so there is obvious room for their offense to get even better.
 

Sam Ray Not

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Westbrook is averaging 22-9-7 and is scoring at a much more efficient rate than in the past
His .532 TS% is well below league average, and right around his career average — better than last year's horror show (.501), worse than his league-average peak (.554). Given his dialed-down volume (23.9 pts per 36 this season compared to 32.9 at his MVP peak), you'd normally expect an improvement in efficiency.

Some of the dip from peak levels is due to his lowish FT%, currently 66%. I'd normally expect improvement there — he's at 80% career — but he also shot 66% last year in 450 attempts, which makes me wonder if he's established a weirdly low new baseline, similar to Andre Iguodala's inexplicable mid-career drop in FT%.

His on-off numbers have also taken a dive this year: -10.5 net-off per 100 possessions, compared to a solidly positive +5.1 career. But I wouldn't read much into that other than (a) small sample size, and (b) most of his "off" time features Harden, one of the two or three most positive players in the league.

Whether or not he should dial back the 3fga is an interesting question. Generally I think it helps his drive game and the team's offensive spacing when he keeps defenses honest by taking at least 3-4 threes a game. But if his current 21.4% from three is anything close to "real," you start to question whether he should be launching them at all.
 
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Kliq

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His .532 TS% is well below league average, and right around his career average — better than last year's horror show (.501), worse than his league-average peak (.554). Given his dialed-down volume (23.9 pts per 36 this season compared to 32.9 at his MVP peak), you'd normally expect an improvement in efficiency.

Some of the dip from peak levels is due to his lowish FT%, currently 66%. I'd normally expect improvement there — he's at 80% career — but he also shot 66% last year in 450 attempts, which makes me wonder if he's established a weirdly low new baseline, similar to Andre Iguodala's inexplicable mid-career drop in FT%.

His on-off numbers have also taken a dive this year: -10.5 net-off per 100 possessions, compared to a solidly positive +5.1 career. But I wouldn't read much into that other than (a) small sample size, and (b) most of his "off" time features Harden, one of the two or three most positive players in the league.

Whether or not he should dial back the 3fga is an interesting question. Generally I think it helps his drive game and the team's offensive spacing when he keeps defenses honest by taking at least 3-4 threes a game. But if his current 21.4% from three is anything close to "real," you start to question whether he should be launching them at all.
His shooting just completely regressing from being below-average to extremely bad is pretty fascinating; given everyone figured his athleticism would go first. It's still SSS, but I'm surprised his three point shooting isn't better than it was last year. I figured part of the reason his three point shooting deteriorated after Durant left was because he had too many possessions where he just had the ball for too long and was tasked with creating something, and because he didn't want to attack the rim on every possession he just settled for late-in-the-shot-clock contested heaves that didn't have a chance of going in. I figured with less pressure on him to create constantly, his shooting would tick up to maybe 31, 32 percent.

Given that Gordon and Harden are also experiencing really bad starts to the year, there may be a schematic explanation. Perhaps teams have shifted into an all-out-stop-the-three defense against Houston in a way that hasn't been seen before.
 

Sam Ray Not

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Given that Gordon and Harden are also experiencing really bad starts to the year, there may be a schematic explanation.
Or, you know, the Canadian ballet.

That plus, in Harden's case, spending the offseason practicing sidestep one-legged jumpers.