Essentially this. I support Morey's statement, and I support Hong Kong, but there's always a time and a place. It's his first amendment right to voice his concerns, but it's also Tilmans right to let him go for damaging relationships with China. That still doesn't make Tilman a good person or in the right for firing Morey. It'd be a gutless, spineless move.
That's not really the same situation. We're not talking about thousandaires at a regular job, but folks that are already millionaires and billionaires that can afford to take the hit from standing up for something that is right. The Rockets and NBA first priority should be to appease it's American fans rather than China. I assure you a lot of folks here will be pissed off with the NBA if Morey is let go...which will also lead to a decrease in profits. So you might as well just leave Morey alone.
Imagine your company’s major partner has two million people in concentration camps and is trying to crush freedoms and the right to self determination of a group of people. Imagine you have friends that are scared and seeing their freedoms stripped from them by the same partner that is responsible for the deaths of 45,000,000 of their own people. Now, I know this part will be hard for you... but imagine that you weren’t a coward and actually had principles and morals... what would you do? I know it is a stretch but imagine if you were a good person... what would you do? Also while I am sure he doesn’t want to lose his job, he hasn’t been willing to compromise his values as he hasn’t apologized but doubled down. I have far more respect for him as a person than I did. He isn’t a coward.
If we are talking about business & money, he screwed up. If we are talking about freedom of speech and from a humanitarian standpoint, he did nothing wrong. Freedom of speech does not free you from consequences. So yes, it was a mistake but I would disagree that he is 100% wrong. Morey is a genius and a seasoned-veteran when it comes to dealing with the Chinese since the Yao era. He HAS to know how sensitive they are when it comes to perceived separatist speech. Feel free to call Joe Tsai a communist but please read the condensed historical lesson in his tweet. There is invaluable information that will help most (especially Non-Chinese) by providing more context to the situation. Anyhow, in before someone calls this propaganda/oppression. Feel free to choose your side but ignorance is the obvious elephant in the room.
OMG, this is terrible, could somebody please, find Joe Chee!!! Get a hold of this MF'er so I can make sense of all of this!!! WHERE IS JOE?!?! HELP ME JOE CHEE!!
Serious question: how much revenue do the Rockets gather from China independent of the rest of the NBA? I understand the NBA as a whole generates revenue there, and the Rox are due their cut whether or not a censored Chinese website has blocked the Rox section. But is there revenue independant of that?
Again, Clutch? Can we please at least soft-ban people who start threads on this topic that say nothing new? Please?
I believe Morey obviously has the right to say whatever he chooses. Tillman can fire him (though he may never recover if he does). The NBA could technically punish Morey though that has it's own set of consequences. What isn't okay, and infringes on his rights as an American is if his first amendment rights to free speech are impeded by our government. This includes the government getting involved in trying to influence a business to punish him much like Trump did to Kaepernick. I believe, in the spirit of this right, we should also not allow a foreign government to impede his rights. We can't force them by law but we should be supportive of his rights. He didn't make those comments in China so they have no jurisdiction here. We shouldn't by any means allow a foreign nation to impede any citizen's American rights.
It was reported pretty widely that Les made a lot of investment into China during his time as the owner. I'm unsure how much of that was inherited by Fertitta. The Rockets clearly will lose all their advertising from Chinese companies but that's also unclear on effect since presumably they would just be replaced by American companies. Harden will probably lose money from Adidas but probably not significant enough be a big enough deal, and likely his image will recover quickly anyway since hes a player and fans love players. And overall not like the Rockets are getting that much sweetheart deals like Chuck Hayes with Chinese shoe deals back in the Yao days. I dont think the direct connection is that significant and Fertitta's lukewarm rebuttal of Morey seems to confirm that
You think the owners will only touch the salaries for players？Who would let go first if you are the owner of the business - the revenue generators or the cost centers? NBA never had that "american interest or chinese interest" problem until now. We wouldn't even been talking about it if Morey acted more wisely
Why do you need to imagine working for a company that has business dealings with China. What fortune 1000 company doesn't have ties with China is the real question.
Any country that censors Winnie the Pooh is not a country I can trust. And if you are a Chinese Houston Rocket, Winnie the Pooh, and South Park fan.....man you are having a bad week. Like first they came for the Pooh, now they came for The Brodie and The Beard.
It's interesting that protecting the bottom line is the one argument that people on both sides seem to agree on. I see the Chinese posters use this same argument to excuse Tianammen Square or other actions by the CCP. It seems that for many, the economic ends justify the means.
The double standard you used in your post is so laughable. On one side, you pretended to be fair to give chance and allow Morey to have freedom of speech but then you insisted everything has a price to pay because after all, this is a business, even in a so called communist country, it actually matters more. That actually is completely fair. But the problem is : when it comes to Tsai, somehow you started to paint him like a historian to share with the world with some invaluable facts which obviously your goal is trying to convince us : Morey what you said is wrong. Except you forgot a simple fact : Tsai is a NBA owner and he definitely has much bigger stake on monetary interest involved in this matter. It’s not hard for any human being to understand which one of those are actually speaking genuinely and which one is acting as a salesman try to sell you some sh’t to complete a deal. You know for a fact that people from mainland China does not respect Taiwanese much, especially the rich people. So please stop painting him like some kind of savior or historian trying to build a bridge between the two worlds. He is nothing more than a puppet assigned by Silver to handle this crisis.
he did not trash his partners directly, instead he supported a group that is being scrutinized by the country that his partners reside in. I think an equivalent of this would be if Rockets had a partnership with GM and he trashed Detroit.
