During his decade-plus tenure as general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey has cultivated a reputation for being one of the smartest minds in basketball. Morey pioneered the use of analytics in the NBA, and his disciples have since spread the gospel of advanced metrics to every corner of the league.

Morey also has demonstrated a penchant for pulling off franchise-altering trades in an effort to keep the Rockets in contention in the crowded Western Conference. After the Golden State Warriors dispatched Houston in six games in the Western Conference semifinals, Morey signaled his willingness to overhaul his roster radically. Out went Chris Paul and in came Russell Westbrook. It was a daring gambit, and perhaps a desperate one, given the draft pick ransom the Rockets had to pay the Thunder in order to commence the deal: two first-round picks (2024 and 2026), plus the Thunder reserving the right to swap picks in 2021 and 2025.

However, it seemed for a time that Morey’s career with the Rockets might not survive long enough to enjoy the fruits of his all-in bet on the 2019-20 season. Morey’s tenuous job status has had nothing to do with questionable basketball decisions or mismanagement of the organization.

Like so many modern tragedies, it all started with a tweet. On Friday evening, Morey fired off a seemingly innocuous message on Twitter expressing his solidarity with democratic protesters in Hong Kong who are engaged in a protracted clash with mainland China over perceived intrusions on the former’s limited democratic rights:

The tweet was quickly deleted, but the damage has proven more difficult to erase. The Rockets, who enjoyed unrivaled popularity in China due to their association with Yao Ming, quickly lost their vaunted place in the Chinese market. The Ringer‘s John Gonzalez provided an excellent summary of the ramifications of Morey’s comments.

Per Gonzalez:

“On Sunday, the Chinese Basketball Association issued a statement on Weibo—a Chinese social media platform akin to Twitter—and expressed its ‘strong opposition’ to what it called Morey’s ‘improper remarks regarding Hong Kong.’ As a result, the CBA said it was suspending ‘exchanges and cooperation’ with the Rockets. The Chinese Consulate in Houston also issued a statement saying it was ‘deeply shocked’ by Morey’s ‘erroneous comments’ and expressed ‘strong dissatisfaction.’ The consulate also urged the Rockets to ‘correct the error and take immediate concrete measures to eliminate the adverse impact.'”

Furthermore, Morey’s diplomatic faux pas led to the blacklisting of the Rockets on Tencent, a Chinese digital platform:

 

Within hours of Morey’s social media post, Houston Rockets owner governor Tilman Fertitta quickly attempted to distance his franchise from his suddenly embattled general manager with a tweet of his own:

The NBA, realizing its considerable business interests in China may be imperiled, also issued a brief statement recognizing that “the views expressed by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey have deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable.”

Finally, Morey completed his re-education with a series of tweets apologizing for any offense he may have caused, and reiterating that his comments did not reflect the views of his employer.

The cycle of outrage and apology was as disappointing as it was predictable. The NBA, which has heretofore demonstrated a willingness to wade into domestic politics, suddenly has lost its voice when the prospect of standing up to the Communist regime in China presented itself. Instead, Commissioner Adam Silver has resorted to equivocating statements that try to express support for free speech while also acknowledging the hurt feelings of the Chinese apparatchiks who pretend to speak for a nation of 1.4 billion people.

In trying to satisfy everyone, Silver has pleased no one. Moreover, the league’s actions have spoken much louder than its empty statements. This week, the Guangzhou Loong Lions, a member of the Chinese Basketball Association, traveled to the United States to play exhibitions against the Philadelphia 76ers and the Washington Wizards. A couple protesting during the 76ers exhibition game was ejected, while protesters in the nation’s capital had their signs confiscated. Meanwhile, during the Houston Rockets’ tour of Japan, a CNN reporter was shut down for asking Rockets stars Harden and Westbrook a question about the events their general manager triggered. Furthermore, the NBA has canceled all press events during an exhibition series between the Brooklyn Nets and LA Lakers in China.

The NBA, like so many other companies that have entered the Chinese market, learned this week that there is a cost to doing business in China. Most have paid the price willingly. Will the NBA follow the same path?

***

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears,” George Orwell wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four. “It was their final, most essential command.”

I kept thinking about Orwell as I listened to formerly outspoken NBA players and coaches demur when given the opportunity to speak out about China. The litany of non-answers have typically included some variant of “it’s complicated.”

In a sense, the political situation in Hong Kong is complicated. An appendage of the Chinese mainland located in the southeastern part of the country, Hong Kong had come under the possession of the British Empire at the tail end of the 19th Century. For nearly 100 years, the inhabitants of Hong Kong were British subjects, enjoying the democratic benefits that such a distinction entailed. Meanwhile, in 1949, a weakened and disjointed China was united under the banner of Communism. Chairman Mao Zedong quickly coalesced power.

Brooklyn Nets governor Joe Tsai’s “open letter to NBA fans,” which he posted on Facebook in response to Daryl Morey, offers an instructive view of the way in which China views its history.

Before the rise of Chairman Mao, the narrative goes, China was weak. Multiple enemies took advantage, invading the country and taking advantage of its resources. Perhaps the most destructive experience was the Japanese occupation of China during World War II. The Rape of Nanking, which documents the sacking of the capital city of China in 1937 by Japanese forces, remains the most disturbing book I have ever read.

The Communist Party postures as the saviors of China. United under the political banner of communism, it is the Chinese who are now the dominant power in the region, and who are now challenging the United States as the dominant superpower (at least economically) in the world.

Yet, this facade of strength masks a crippling weakness that threatens to bring the entire house of cars on which the Chinese economy rests down on itself. The Communist Party of China, which bills itself a movement of “the people,” is deathly afraid of the power of the individual person.

You need not be an expert of Chinese history to detect this fundamental truth. American Factory, a documentary that recently premiered on Netflix, tells the story of a formerly shuttered glass factory in Ohio that is reopened by a Chinese company. One of the most interesting parts of the movie was the desperate lengths taken by the Chinese overseers of the company to prevent the workers from unionizing. When functioning properly, unions draw upon the strength of the collective group to empower and protect the individual. Such organizations are ironically antithetical to the Chinese business model, which, the documentary reveals, subordinate the needs of the individual to the needs of the company.

Freedom takes a back seat to stability. The lucrative positions of the executives are thus secured, and the profit margins unthreatened by trivial matters like worker rights.

Tsai’s open letter invokes China’s past dealings with foreign invaders while explaining Chinese sensitivity to what he labels as “separatist movements.” Tsai writes:

“The one thing that is terribly misunderstood, and often ignored, by the western press and those critical of China is that 1.4 billion Chinese citizens stand united when it comes to the territorial integrity of China and the country’s sovereignty over her homeland. This issue is non-negotiable.

A bit of historical perspective is important. In the mid-19th century, China fought two Opium Wars with the British, aided by the French, who forced through illegal trade of opium to China. A very weak Qing Dynasty government lost the wars and the result was the ceding of Hong Kong to the British as a colony.

The invasion of Chinese territories by foreign forces continued against a weak and defenseless Qing government, which precipitated in the Boxer Rebellion by Chinese peasants at the turn of the 20th century. In response, the Eight Nations Alliance – comprised of Japan, Russia, Britain, France, United States, Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary – dispatched their forces to occupy Chinese territories in the name of humanitarian intervention. The foreign forces marched into the Chinese capital Peking (now called Beijing), defeated the peasant rebels and proceeded to loot and pillage the capital city.

In 1937, Japan invaded China by capturing Beijing, Shanghai and the then-Chinese capital Nanjing. Imperial Japanese troops committed mass murder and rape against the residents of Nanjing, resulting in several hundred thousand civilian deaths. The war of resistance by the Chinese against Japan ended after tens of millions of Chinese casualties, and only after America joined the war against Japan post-Pearl Harbor.

I am going into all of this because a student of history will understand that the Chinese psyche has heavy baggage when it comes to any threat, foreign or domestic, to carve up Chinese territories.”

Hong Kong had been a property of the British Empire for 100 years, a temporary prize claimed during the Opium Wars of the 19th Century. When the British lease of Hong Kong was up in 1997, the land was formally returned to China. However, the democratic rights and economic freedoms the inhabitants of Hong Kong and its businesses had come to enjoy proved more difficult to renounce. Before the return was initiated, a compromise was reached.

The Chinese called it “one country, two systems.” For fifty years, until 2047, Hong Kong would be able to maintain a distinct legal system and a semi-independent governing structure. As the years have passed, the Chinese residents of Hong Kong have grown sensitive to Chinese intrusions on the rights they were promised during the handover. The unrest in Hong Kong today is a direct result of these intrusions.

Hong Kong needs only to look at the ongoing plight of the Uighur Muslims in western China to see the endgame. Under the guise of eliminating terrorist threats, China has orchestrated mass arrests of Uighurs. Reports claim that upwards of 1 million Uighurs are being held in a concentration camp. There have also been reports of forced organ harvesting.

In China, the one true crime is difference. It poses an existential threat to the careful political order the Chinese have created. Any attempts to subvert the established order are stamped out violently. It’s the kind of behavior that is ripe for the kind of spotlight that the NBA and its membership could provide.

***

When Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr was offered a chance to speak about the ongoing controversy between the NBA and China, he provided the following insight, courtesy of Sam Hustis at KNBR.com:

The difference, of course, is that Coach Kerr has the right to speak out about the gun issue in America. He can access critical articles online. He can protest. He can appeal to the legislature to make changes. He can use his voice.

The Chinese, on the other hand, have no voice. They are relegated to having useful idiots like Joe Tsai speak for them, or for big tech companies to make decisions on their behalf about the teams they could watch. Missing in Tsai’s open letter was any mention of the plight of the Uighurs. Tsai’s brief history of Chinese suffering failed to include any mention of the devastating effects of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. He also made no note of the thousands killed during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, victims of indiscriminate violence at the hands of a Chinese army operating at the behest of the government.

Greed is not complicated. Power is not complicated. Suppression of dissent is not complicated.

The NBA has a choice. The league can choose to continue to do business in China, or it can demonstrate it prioritizes the values it has championed in the United States, even while abroad. It cannot do both. With its actions this week, the Chinese have made sure of it.

I suspect the NBA will choose the former. They aren’t alone. Other American companies have made the same choice when dealing with China. Commissioner Silver will likely couch the decision to continue Chinese engagement in the same language he used in his statement after the Morey incident:

“Basketball runs deep in the hearts and minds of our two peoples.  At a time when divides between nations grow deeper and wider, we believe sports can be a unifying force that focuses on what we have in common as human beings rather than our differences.”

Silver and his cohorts in the league office will hold up basketball as a chance to narrow the gap between the U.S. and China. They will tell the world, and themselves, that they’re building a bridge.

What they’re actually doing is walking a tightrope. And the Morey tweet will be just the first test of the NBA’s balance in managing this relationship. The path will only get more treacherous precisely because sports are the “unifying force” Silver claims. With more interaction will come more recognition of shared humanity. And more recognition will lead to more questions. And more questions, if uncontrolled, will lead to disruption.

Tread carefully.