No not Ron Artest and them.
story
I love the closing paragraph:
Quote:
"People were screaming and running," Prattville cheerleader Cherish Cartee said. "Girls lost their cell phones. Keys got lost. It's something I will never forget."
Printable View
No not Ron Artest and them.
story
I love the closing paragraph:
Quote:
"People were screaming and running," Prattville cheerleader Cherish Cartee said. "Girls lost their cell phones. Keys got lost. It's something I will never forget."
changy's back!
and i think most of those girls could take artest, to be honest. i've seen better fighting in the pre-school sandbox.
phil spectre is accused of murder?!?
weird...
continued next postQuote:
Hong Kong Protests Put N.B.A. on Edge in China
A tweet from the Houston Rockets general manager prompted a backlash in China, making things uncomfortable for a league used to its players and representatives speaking out on politics.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019...y=90&auto=webp
The Houston Rockets and the New Orleans Pelicans during a preseason game in Shanghai in 2016.CreditCreditVisual China Group, via Getty Images
By Daniel Victor
Published Oct. 7, 2019
Updated Oct. 8, 2019, 6:07 a.m. ET
HONG KONG — The N.B.A. superstar LeBron James has routinely insulted President Trump. Two of the league’s most successful coaches, Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich, have repeatedly slammed American lawmakers for inaction on gun legislation. And other basketball stars regularly speak out on social and political issues — police shootings, elections and racism — without fear of retribution from the league.
But this weekend, a Houston Rockets executive unwittingly exposed an issue that may have been too much for the National Basketball Association: support for protesters in Hong Kong, which infuriated China.
“Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong,” said a post on Twitter by Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Rockets. It was quickly deleted.
But the damage was done, and the N.B.A. quickly moved to smooth things over in a lucrative market that generates millions of dollars in revenue. The league said it was “regrettable” that many Chinese fans were offended by the comment.
On Tuesday, CCTV, China’s state broadcaster, said it would suspend broadcasts of the league’s preseason games played in China. Some initial Chinese reports of the broadcaster’s statement, which left room for uncertainty, indicated that the ban covered all preseason games.
Sponsors in China paused their deals with the Rockets, and the country’s main broadcaster said it would remove the team’s games from its schedule. Two exhibition games scheduled for a low-level team affiliated with the Rockets were also canceled.
The issue is familiar to Hollywood studios, major companies and individual athletes chasing business in a country with 1.4 billion people, and the N.B.A.’s reaction reflects a corporate sensitivity toward China’s low tolerance for criticism of its political system.
The league’s statement, in turn, inflamed supporters of the Hong Kong protests and many fans in the United States, where the protesters are generally seen as battling a repressive government. Democratic and Republican politicians found agreement in calling the league gutless, accusing it of prioritizing money over human rights.
Quote:
Josh Hawley
✔
@HawleyMO
Let’s make this real simple. @NBA should apologize for groveling to Chinese Communist Party and cancel all exhibition games in China until the situation in Hong Kong is resolved. Peacefully. With the rights of Hong Kong’s people protected. https://twitter.com/esaagar/status/1181293413091676161 …
Saagar Enjeti
✔
@esaagar
NEW: @HawleyMO writes in a letter to @NBA Commissioner Adam Silver:
"You may not think of your League as an American undertaking, but whatever you think, what you say and do represents America to the world"
Calls for end to all exhibition games in China
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Morey’s original tweet, which he later apologized for in a two-part post, was defended by Senator Ted Cruz, who disagreed with the league’s decision to back away from the comments.Quote:
Beto O'Rourke
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@BetoORourke
The only thing the NBA should be apologizing for is their blatant prioritization of profits over human rights. What an embarrassment. https://twitter.com/sopandeb/status/...372025344?s=21 …
Sopan Deb
✔
@SopanDeb
NEW: the NBA has released a statement on Daryl Morey:
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Quote:
Ted Cruz
✔
@tedcruz
As a lifelong @HoustonRockets fan, I was proud to see @dmorey call out the Chinese Communist Party’s repressive treatment of protestors in Hong Kong.
Now, in pursuit of big $$, the @nba is shamefully retreating. https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/1181006820372025344 …
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Sopan Deb
✔
@SopanDeb
NEW: the NBA has released a statement on Daryl Morey:
View image on Twitter
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Sometimes, I find a really funny thread to copy something to - like this DAngerous Riot Breaks out at Basketball game... one that I'm copying this HK Protests news item to...Quote:
Speaking ahead of a scheduled preseason game between the Rockets and Toronto Raptors in Japan, the N.B.A.’s commissioner, Adam Silver, acknowledged the fallout but said the league supported Morey’s right to free expression.
“There is no doubt, the economic impact is already clear,” Silver told Kyodo News. “There have already been fairly dramatic consequences from that tweet, and I have read some of the media suggesting that we are not supporting Daryl Morey, but in fact we have.”
On Tuesday, Silver tried again to limit the impact, saying that the league’s initial statement had left people “angered, confused or unclear on who we are or what the N.B.A. stands for.”
“It is inevitable that people around the world — including from America and China — will have different viewpoints over different issues,” he said in a new statement. “It is not the role of the N.B.A. to adjudicate those differences.”
He continued: “However, the N.B.A. will not put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say or will not say on these issues. We simply could not operate that way.”
James and the Los Angeles Lakers play two games in China this week against the Brooklyn Nets, a team owned by Joseph Tsai, the billionaire co-founder of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
Tsai said in a statement late Sunday that Hong Kong was a “third-rail issue” in China, calling the efforts by protesters a “separatist movement.” (Most protesters deny they are interested in independence, but the Chinese state media has at times depicted them that way.)
Tilman Fertitta, the owner of the Rockets and Morey’s boss, publicly rebuked Morey but said later that the general manager’s job was not in danger.Quote:
Sopan Deb
✔
@SopanDeb
NEW: The new owner of the Nets, Joe Tsai, has issued an open letter about the Morey situation: http://bit.ly/2nmCeUz
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The N.B.A. is far from the first company to find itself forced to choose sides on geopolitical issues it never intended to be involved in, and to ultimately bow to China’s economic might.Quote:
Tilman Fertitta
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@TilmanJFertitta
Listen....@dmorey does NOT speak for the @HoustonRockets. Our presence in Tokyo is all about the promotion of the @NBA internationally and we are NOT a political organization. @espn https://twitter.com/dmorey/status/1180312072027947008 …
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China is an attractive — and necessary — lure for nearly all global institutions, with an economy that while slowing, continues to grow at a pace that is the envy of many countries. Any threat to an ability to do business in China would have dire financial consequences for many multinational corporations.
As a result, many companies have apologized or made concessions after angering China. In many cases, the companies found themselves scrambling to respond to comments or Twitter posts made by executives or other employees that generate unwanted attention on social networks.
“Obviously corporations and others perceive that their business interests are at risk, so they are apologizing,” said Shanthi Kalathil, the senior director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy. “But where I would perceive the risks is at the level of reputation. These are well-respected global brands and there is reputational cost to simply going along with the party line.”
In an effort to avoid losing access to Chinese airspace, Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong’s flagship airline, fired employees who wrote posts on social media in support of the protests. In August, Rupert Hogg, the airline’s chief executive, resigned.
Nike, which endorses James, pulled some shoes after a fashion designer’s support for the Hong Kong protests sparked a social media backlash against the brand.
The stakes are particularly high for the N.B.A. in China.
Tencent Holdings, a Chinese tech conglomerate, reported that 490 million people watched N.B.A. programming on its platforms last year, including 21 million fans who watched Game 6 of the 2019 N.B.A. finals. By comparison, Nielsen measured 18.3 million viewers for the game on the American network ABC.
The league recently announced a five-year extension of its partnership with Tencent to stream its games in China for a reported $1.5 billion.
“This is a massive indicator for the perceived value and enormous potential of the China market,” Mailman, a sports digital marketing agency, wrote in a recent report.
The N.B.A. has been similarly successful on Chinese social media. The league has 41.8 million followers on Weibo, a popular Chinese social network, compared with 38.6 million followers on Facebook and 28.4 million on Twitter.
The involvement of the Rockets is particularly troublesome for the N.B.A., given the franchise’s longtime status as among the most popular team in China. Yao Ming, considered the crown jewel of Chinese basketball, played for the Rockets from 2002 to 2011.
Yao is now the president of the Chinese Basketball Association, which suspended its relationship with the Rockets. It also canceled two NBA G League games scheduled for this month between affiliates of the Rockets and the Dallas Mavericks, said a person with knowledge of the decision who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
Houston was the second-most-popular team in China behind the Golden State Warriors last year, according to Mailman. The team had 7.3 million followers on Weibo, compared with 2.9 million followers on Twitter.
James Harden, a Rockets guard and one of the N.B.A.’s biggest stars, directly apologized to Chinese fans on Monday.
“We apologize. We love China, we love playing there,” he told reporters in Tokyo, where the Rockets were preparing for their preseason game.
“We go there once or twice a year. They show us the most support and love. We appreciate them as a fan base, and we love everything they’re about, and we appreciate the support that they give us,” said Harden, who three years ago spoke out about the shootings of two black men by police.
Echoing China’s worldview, especially as it relates to its sovereignty over disputed territories, is considered a cost of doing business there, for both entertainers and companies.
Gap was forced to apologize in 2017 after selling a shirt that featured a map of China that did not include Taiwan, a self-governing island off its southern coast. The Marriott International hotel chain apologized in January 2018 for listing Tibet, a region of western China, and Taiwan as countries in a customer survey.
In February 2018, the German automaker Daimler apologized for using a quotation from the Dalai Lama, who is widely viewed as a Tibetan separatist in China, in a social media post from its Mercedes-Benz brand.
In March 2018, China demanded that international airlines refer to Taiwan as part of China in their online booking systems, a request mocked by the White House as “Orwellian nonsense” but eventually obeyed by all major carriers.
Movie studios frequently find themselves at odds with state censors in a country where notions of free expression do not apply but billions of dollars ride on international success.
Disney, which has been more successful at navigating these waters than any other American entertainment company, is now in the position of promoting the live-action adaptation of “Mulan” after Crystal Yifei Liu, its Chinese-American star, prompted dueling backlash in the United States and China by supporting a crackdown on protesters by Hong Kong police.
Disney, which had no comment, has inched forward in its positioning in China for decades, leading to the opening of Shanghai Disneyland in 2016 and spectacular results for films like the recent “Avengers: Endgame,” which took in $858 million in the United States and $614 million in China earlier this year. Last year, Chinese moviegoers bought an estimated $8.87 billion in movie tickets, up 9 percent from a year earlier, according to box office analysts.
For its part, the N.B.A. has weathered outrage in China before. Last year, J.J. Redick, then of the Philadelphia 76ers, recorded a video for the Chinese New Year in which he appeared to use a racial slur for Chinese people, which he later said was an unintentional verbal slip. He apologized, but was roundly booed when he touched the ball during preseason games in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Claire Fu, Sopan Deb, Julie Creswell and Brooks Barnes contributed reporting.
Correction: Oct. 8, 2019
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described a Twitter post by Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets. Mr. Morey did not say, “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong;” instead, he shared an image that read, “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.”
Daniel Victor is a Hong Kong-based reporter, covering a wide variety of stories with a focus on breaking news. He joined The Times in 2012 from ProPublica. @bydanielvictor
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Philadelphia 76ers fans kicked out of game for carrying 'Free Hong Kong' signs
The protest came days after Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for demonstrators in Hong Kong, which drew an instant rebuke from the league and partners in China.
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Philadelphia 76ers' Ben Simmons (25) drives to the net as Guangzhou Loong-Lions' Yongpeng Zhang defends during the first half of an NBA exhibition basketball game on Oct. 8, 2019, in Philadelphia.Matt Rourke / AP
Oct. 9, 2019, 1:27 PM PDT
By David K. Li
Two basketball fans were kicked out of a Philadelphia 76ers game Tuesday night because they carried small, handmade signs supporting anti-government demonstrators in Hong Kong.
Sam Wachs, 33, a podcast producer from Philadelphia, and his wife were at the Sixers exhibition game, sitting three rows behind the visitors bench — where the Guangzhou Loong-Lions, of the Chinese Basketball Association, were stationed at the Wells Fargo Center.
Each carried signs, "Free Hong Kong" and "Free HK," before they were booted by arena security in the second quarter.
The Wachs' protest came four days after Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for the demonstrators, drawing an instant rebuke from the league and its business partners in the People's Republic of China.Quote:
Sam Wachs
@gogowachs
· 23h
At the @Sixers game & security took away my pro Hong Kong signage
Sam Wachs
@gogowachs
Here are the controversial signs. I know, earth shattering right? Obvious why the NBA would have a problem with this. Thanks to @Christie_Ileto for sending me this photo:
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Residents of the semiautonomous region have been protesting for more than four months now, calling for reforms.
"The NBA does not want deal with this," Wachs told NBC News on Wednesday. "It’s all about money. They want their sweet, sweet Chinese money. And they say they're for human rights and equality but that's only up to point. And that point is the Chinese market."
Wells Fargo Center managers said their security officers had the right to eject Wachs and his wife over their support of Hong Kong protesters.
"After three separate warnings, the two individuals were escorted out of the arena without incident," according to the arena statement to NBC Philadelphia. "The security team employed respectful and standard operating procedures."
Wachs said the first warning came as he and his wife sat silently, holding up their signs, when security first approached them.
"'You can’t have these signs, nothing political,'" Wachs said, quoting a security guard. "I said 'Why' and he said 'Hey don't give me a hard time, I'm just doing my job.'"
The guard confiscated the "Free Hong Kong sign" but allowed them to keep their "Free HK" poster. Wachs said he told the guard "HK" stood for Harry Kalas, the late longtime Philadelphia Phillies baseball broadcaster.
That "HK" sign was confiscated a few minutes later. And then Wachs stood up and started chanting "Free Hong Kong, free Hong Kong," leading to his third strike and ejection from the building.
Wachs, who lived in Hong Kong between 2009 and 2011, called for fans in other NBA cities to pull similar protests and force the issue.
"I hope it does not go away, I would love people in other cities to do something like this," he said.
David K. Li
David K. Li is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.
THREADS
DAngerous Riot Breaks out at Basketball game...
HK Protests news
Who would've imagined that Basketball would become such an issue with Hong Kong?
Quote:
LeBron James no longer King James for Hong Kong protesters
Associated Press
JOHN LEICESTER
,Associated Press•October 15, 2019
HONG KONG (AP) — When the ball smashed into a photo of LeBron James' face stuck above the hoop and dropped into the basket, the Hong Kong protesters cheered.
They also trampled on jerseys bearing his name and gathered in a semicircle to watch one burn.
James' standing among basketball fans in Hong Kong took a hit because of comments the NBA star made about free speech. Fans gathered on courts amid Hong Kong's high-rise buildings Tuesday to vent their anger.
The player for the Los Angeles Lakers touched a nerve among protesters for suggesting that free speech can have negative consequences. They have been protesting for months in defense of the same freedom that James said can carry "a lot of negative."
The protesters chanted support for Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, something of a hero among demonstrators in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory for having tweeted on Oct. 4 in support of their struggle, infuriating authorities in China.
What the crowd of approximately 200 people chanted about James wasn't printable.
"People are angry," said James Lo, a web designer who runs a Hong Kong basketball fan page on Facebook. He said he's already received a video from a protester that showed him burning a No. 23 jersey bearing James' name.
He expects more, given the backlash from protesters who've been regularly hitting the streets of Hong Kong and battling police because of concerns that the international business hub is slowly losing its freedoms, which are unique in China.
"Students, they come out like every weekend. They've got tear gassed and then they got gun-shot, like every weekend. Police beating students and then innocent people, like every day. And then he (James) just comes up with something (like) that. We just can't accept that."
James made his comments in response to a question about whether Morey should be punished for his tweet that reverberated in China and had consequences for the NBA.
"Yes, we do have freedom of speech," James said. "But at times, there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you're not thinking about others, when you only think about yourself."
He added: "So many people could have been harmed, not only financially but physically, emotionally, spiritually. So just be careful what we tweet and what we say and what we do. Even though yes, we do have freedom of speech, it can be a lot of negative that comes with it."
NBA players weren't made available before or after games in China, which CCTV didn't broadcast, and several companies and state-run offices reportedly severed their ties with the NBA over Morey's tweet and the league's response to it.
Protesters said James' comments smacked of a double-standard, because he's used his clout as a sports headliner to press for social causes in the United States.
"Please remember, all NBA players, what you said before: 'Black lives matter.' Hong Kong lives also matter!" one of the protesters, 36-year-old office worker William Mok, said in addressing the applauding crowd.
Others said LeBron's comments made it seem that he's more worried about money than people.
"James was trying, you know, to take a side, on the China side, which is like ridiculous," said Aaron Lee, a 36-year-old marketing director. "He was being honest, financially. Financial is money. Simple as that. LeBron James stands for money. Period."
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DAngerous Riot Breaks out at Basketball game...
HK Protests news
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Hollywood's New Self-Censorship Mess in China
8:37 AM PDT 10/16/2019 by Tatiana Siegel
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With pro-democracy marches gaining steam in Hong Kong and billions at stake in the country’s film market, studios may look to speak out just enough that it "doesn’t embarrass you so much that people say you’re a toady or kowtowing."
Two days after South Park was banned in China, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone served up Hollywood’s most defiant rebuke of the communist government in decades with their Oct. 9 episode. When the Comedy Central series’ geologist turned pot dealer Randy Marsh — voiced by Parker — shouted, “**** the Chinese government!” it marked the most incendiary words from an actor since Richard Gere dubbed China’s occupation of Tibet “horrendous” at the 1993 Oscars.
While South Park’s “Shots!!!” episode provided fodder for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters, who are battling mainland backed police forces, don’t expect many other high-profile entertainment figures to follow suit. When it comes to China and its vast moneymaking potential, the prevailing wisdom is: Get woke, go broke. The practice of self-censorship is common now, say top producers. “With China, nothing is transparent,” a producer who has released films there tells The Hollywood Reporter. “No one knows what the ground rules are. And that’s by design. It leaves everyone on edge.”
From Mulan actress Crystal Liu to the Lakers’ LeBron James, most top stars are taking no chances and are lining up to either side with the Chinese regime or denounce any criticism of its authoritarian tactics. Similarly, companies like ESPN (which used a controversial map on SportsCenter that indicated the self ruled island of Taiwan was part of China) and Apple (which removed from its online stores the so-called Hong Kong protest app and quietly dropped the Gere series *******s, despite picking it up straight to series late last year) appear to be toeing the party line.
All the while, observers say an overt self-censorship has begun to creep into the entertainment industry. Inside Hollywood, the film industry faces the greatest risk in rocking the China boat.
Consider that American movies earned $3.2 billion in China in 2018, with Disney accounting for nearly a quarter of that with $700 million. This year, the studio’s Avengers: Endgame pulled in $614 million from China alone. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Disney stayed silent in the wake of Liu posting on social media platform Weibo in August: “I support Hong Kong’s police, you can beat me up now,” adding the hashtag #IAlsoSupportTheHongKong Police.
“Disney has certainly enjoyed major success in China, but I’d hesitate to say that any single studio has the luxury of provoking China because it’s a very important relationship for the industry at large,” says Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice Media. “Virtually all of the majors have appealed to Chinese audiences with blockbuster tentpole releases and occasionally in a bigger way than some films played with domestic moviegoers.”
James’ courtship of Chinese consumers extends well beyond basketball and sneakers and into film thanks to his upcoming Warner Bros. tentpole Space Jam 2 (dated for July 16, 2021). But James drew outrage when he blasted Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey for tweeting his support for Hong Kong protesters, calling him “misinformed” (Morey had deleted the tweet). After all, James has been outspoken about police brutality in the U.S. as well as about President Trump’s so-called Muslim travel ban (in China, more than 1 million Uighur Muslims are said to be held in internment camps).
Disney-owned ESPN drew further criticism when Deadspin on Oct. 8 reported on a leaked email written by news editor Chuck Salituro that discouraged any political discussion about China and Hong Kong with regard to the Morey story. (An ESPN source noted that the network had reporters and cameras in Shanghai and broadcast video of a Chinese worker ripping down an NBA logo as well as video of the Lakers arriving to little fanfare.)
“In entertainment, these people have to look at the bottom line,” says Stan Rosen, a USC professor who specializes in China’s entertainment industry. “You want to address [the human rights abuses] in a way that keeps the China market but doesn’t embarrass you so much that people say you’re a toady or kowtowing to China. That’s why you’re seeing a pushback against the NBA and Disney to a certain extent.”
Some of the official explanations offered by corporate giants for their Chinese-friendly moves have been criticized as murky. With *******s, sources say Apple bristled at the vigilante justice tone of the show. As for the app removal, the tech and soon-to-be content giant said that HKMap.Live, used by Hong Kong protesters, had endangered law enforcement and residents.
The stakes continue to grow. This year, China’s Tencent signed a five-year, $1.5 billion deal to continue as the NBA’s exclusive digital partner in China. In the case of South Park, China’s move to scrub every clip, episode and online discussion of the series won’t hit Viacom’s bottom line. But the parent company, soon to merge with CBS, will have to contend with any Chinese retaliation for its other companies like Paramount, which fuels the country’s pipeline with such product as the Mission: Impossible and Transformers films.
A company like Netflix has more freedom to antagonize China given that its platform isn’t available in the Middle Kingdom, thus it acquired such incendiary documentaries as 2017’s Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower. But it will face a major test of China’s patience with the upcoming Meryl Streep starrer The Laundromat, which depicts adherents of outlawed spiritual practice Falun Gong as victims of the government’s organ harvesting program. South Park and Laundromat notwithstanding, the industry likely will continue to tiptoe around China and any other lucrative hotspots that contribute to the bottom line of studios, networks and streamers.
“That’s the world in which we live now. You’re pandering to the people that have the money and the power,” says Joker producer Jason Cloth of the industry’s increased self-censorship. “There are many films that fail in North America but do gangbuster business in major foreign markets. So if you have to be cognizant of offending somebody in a major foreign market, you’re going to stay away from that subject matter.
This story first appeared in the Oct. 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
THREADS
DAngerous Riot Breaks out at Basketball game...
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Censorship
Mulan Live-Action Disney project