Crazy how this Daryl Morey tweet turned into a full-bore NBA disaster. We’ve had fans kicked out of Philly and Washington preseason games, protests outside of arenas, and the uber-rare occasion of liberals and conservatives joining together to rip the league for kowtowing to China. I mean, we had Laura Ingraham and Will Bunch on the same side, for Christ’s sake.

All because a general manager expressed support for the democratic movement in Hong Kong.

Now the NBA is putting the kibosh on communications until the preseason China trip is finished, per ESPN:

Saturday’s game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets is still scheduled to be played to conclude the 2019 China Games. However, the teams involved won’t be talking about it.

The Nets’ 114-111 victory over the Lakers in Shanghai on Thursday was able to happen only with a stipulation by the Chinese government mandating that no media availability of any kind be held at the game and that NBA commissioner Adam Silver cancel his pregame news conference.

The league is adopting the same temporary policy for Saturday’s game in Shenzhen.

“We have decided not to hold media availability for our teams for the remainder of our trip in China,” the NBA announced in a statement Friday. “They have been placed into a complicated and unprecedented situation while abroad and we believe it would be unfair to ask them to address these matters in real time.”

The story goes on to to say this:

“The league is making this decision independent of Chinese authorities, sources told ESPN.”

Disaster.

Even yesterday the league apologized when a Houston Rockets staffer cut off a CNN reporter for asking this question:

And look, no, it’s not fair for players to have to answer these questions while in China, but as many people have pointed out, this is a self-inflicted wound. There’s never been an issue with discussing American political and social issues on home soil, as Steve Kerr and others frequently find themselves sharing liberal viewpoints in front of cameras and microphones.

But it’s not a liberal or conservative issue; it’s an issue of free speech, and if the NBA isn’t going to allow open communication and expression of thought because the almighty Chinese dollar is more important than the apex American value, then yes, you deserve to be dragged as much as you are.

The only positive I can see in this whole thing is a sort of “one step backward, two steps forward” mentality, and what I mean is that it could be beneficial for the NBA to take a hit right now if maintaining a positive relationship with China helps out in the future. If we’re looking to improve our standing with an authoritarian regime and economic and political rival, then using the popularity of the NBA as a common thread or an entry point to new, positive political discourse might help everybody in the end. We should all remember that the power of basketball got Dennis Rodman multiple trips to North Korea as a pseudo-diplomat, so anything is possible.