Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey ignites firestorm with tweet backing Hong Kong protests.
Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey's tweet supporting pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong was up for less than a day before he erased it, but it set off a firestorm that one NBA owner said could take years for Morey and his team to rebound from.
1/ I did not intend my tweet to cause any offense to Rockets fans and friends of mine in China. I was merely voicing one thought, based on one interpretation, of one complicated event. I have had a lot of opportunity since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives. "Our presence in Tokyo is all about the promotion of the @NBA internationally and we are NOT a political organization," Fertitta wrote.
The fallout from Morey's tweet was swift and widespread in China, where the country is set to host two preseason games between the Brooklyn Nets and the Lakers later this week in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Perhaps the biggest blowback came from former Rockets' star Yao Ming, the catalyst behind the team's enormous popularity in China. Ming announced that the Chinese Basketball Association, which he is president of, is suspending its relationship with the Rockets.
"When I bought controlling interest in the Brooklyn Nets in September, I didn't expect my first public communication with our fans would be to comment on something as politically charged and grossly misunderstood as the way hundreds of millions of Chinese NBA fans feel about what just happened," Tsai wrote.
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