NBA-China tweet to affect Clippers vs Mavericks pre-season match

Houston Rockets' General Manager Daryl Morey recently posted a tweet; now deleted, in support of freedom for Hong Kong. This has sparked a major controversy, which started as a Rockets vs China, quickly turning into an NBA vs China affair.

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The story so far

As mentioned above, Morey, who posted a tweet supporting the protesters in Hong Kong, has displeased the Chinese consortiums. Although the league later reiterated, that Morey speaks only for him and not the league, it supports freedom of speech. The Chinese media has not taken kindly to this as the media and various kit manufacturers have backed out from their sponsorship deals. Chinese state-run broadcast network CCTV cancelled their broadcasts of both the games between Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers, this week. The network also stated it would investigate all cooperation and exchanges with the NBA. 

When the first Lakers-Nets game tipped off on Tuesday, there were no sponsors to be seen around the games. The floors were even re-finished to remove brand logos that had originally been painted onto the floor. The league currently has a reported $1.5 billion streaming deal with Chinese media company Tencent also the NBA is the number one followed league in China online, clocking 2.9 billion video views during the play-offs last season. There is a serious fear among the NBA players and officials alike, that major financial windfall can occur citing this controversy.

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The Game to be affected

The pre-season game between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Dallas Mavericks which is set to take place in the Roger Arena Vancouver is set to see a host of protesters having two different agendas. One set, in support of democracy in Hong Kong, while the other being the fans of the now-defunct Vancouver Grizzlies, who'll be rallying in demand of bringing back the Grizzlies to the city. One of the protest organiser Alex Heber reportedly stating 'they'd like to test the NBA's stance on freedom of speech'.

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