The tweet that Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey made about the recent Hong Kong protests created a widespread controversy. Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers provided his thoughts on the comments and expressed both his agreement with Morey and his reluctance for the timing of the post.
“I don’t know. I didn’t pay much attention to it other than what (Daryl Morey) said. And he was right in saying that,” Rivers said, via Jovan Buha of The Athletic. “But there’s consequences to every action. I’ve been saying that as well. … It’s a tough issue clearly.”
The reluctance that Rivers seemed to have about Morey's tweet was mostly with the fact that he posted it while NBA personnel were in China. That seems to share the sentiment from the controversial answer that Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James provided regarding the matter.
“Yes, we all do have freedom of speech,” James said, via the San Francisco Chronicle. “But at times there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you’re not thinking about others. … I don’t want to get into a word or sentence feud with Daryl, but I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand and he spoke.”
“So many people could have been harmed — not only financially, but physically, emotionally, spiritually. Just be careful about what we tweet, what we say and what we do. Yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that, too.”
The answer that Rivers provided didn't go nearly as far as James when expressing concern with the timing of the tweet.
The controversy that resulted from James' particular comments is that he expressed concern mostly regarding how the situation could have impacted him. He received significant backlash for failing to even acknowledge the pro-Democracy protests in Hong Kong or the human rights concerns in China.
The exact overall implications of the situation between China and the NBA remain to be seen. However, comments in support of the pro-Democracy protests seem very unlikely to be made by NBA players and coaches in the future.
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