Bill Donohue

The National Basketball Association touts its commitment to social justice, emphasizing its opposition to racial discrimination. It’s also opposed to anything that might upset the LGBTQ crowd. But when it comes to religious minorities being persecuted, tortured, and subjected to cultural genocide in China, it takes the side of the barbarians.

After the Charlotte Hornets recently defeated the Milwaukee Bucks, 115-114, Hornets star LaMelo Ball was asked how his team managed to contain Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo. “We loaded up—no homo.” The NBA front office went ballistic and fined him $100,000. But their interest in social justice clearly does not extend to truly serious cases of injustice.

In fact, the NBA has an incestuous relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It will never do anything to cross these totalitarian thugs. That’s because China’s share of the NBA’s revenue is in the double digits, and may reach 20 percent by the end of this decade. Money talks, morality walks.

It has been well reported that the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority, are used as slave laborers in China, most prominently by Nike, the giant athletic company. What has received far less attention is the degree to which the CCP persecutes Christians, and not just laborers.

Dr. Bob Fu is president of ChinaAid. Last December he gave his assessment of conditions in China. “Without exaggeration, the persecution against the Christians and other religious minorities has really reached the worst level we have not seen in 40 years since the Cultural Revolution…. For the first time, we have seen the Communist Party is cracking down on the Church across the board; literally declared a war against Christianity.”

Aid to Church in Need agrees. “Churches are monitored and sometimes forcibly closed. Plus, it is illegal for anyone under 18 to attend Church services. Many Christians have been arrested and sentenced for unclear reasons.”

International Christian Concern specializes in tracking Christian persecution globally. One of the most despicable tactics used by the CCP is sinicization [Sino means China-related] which means that cultural institutions must put aside their norms and values and adopt the thinking of the Party. This is nothing less than cultural genocide, an attempt to wipe out allegiances to every person and institution unaffiliated with the CCP.

Applied to Christians, this means that all must bow to the CCP, not God. Thus, Christians are told to take down crosses and pictures of Jesus in their homes and replace them with communist symbols and pictures of Xi Jinping, the head of the CCP. If they don’t cooperate, they risk losing state benefits, if not more.

The NBA knows this to be true but doesn’t care. It’s all about the cash.

One brave soul who spoke out against this persecution is Daryl Morey. In 2019, when he was the general manager of the Houston Rockets, he issued a tweet that said, “Fight For Freedom. Stand With Hong Kong.” The freedom-loving people in Hong Kong, who are terrified of the CCP taking over altogether, loved it. Who was angry? The CCP, the Houston Rockets and the NBA.

Morey got the message—shut up and fall in line. He promptly apologized to Chinese basketball fans and sponsors, saying, “I would hope that those who are upset will know that offending or misunderstanding them was not my intention.”

He had no choice. The owner of the Rockets threw Morey overboard, and Rockets player James Harden said, “We apologize. We love China.” NBA superstar LeBron James was positively condescending, saying Morey “wasn’t educated on the situation.” But at least they didn’t play both sides of the street.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver did. He said that while Morey had a right to say what he did, he emphasized that the NBA was “apologetic” over what happened. Responding to the CCP backlash, he dutifully obliged his masters by saying that although the Party cancelled an event with the Brooklyn Nets, the NBA would still donate computers, as planned, to an education center in Shanghai.

The NBA under Silver is so corrupt that last year America First Legal petitioned the Department of Justice to require the NBA and Silver to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as agents of the CCP.

Today there is no bigger fan of the CCP in the NBA than Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai. Even though he was born in Taiwan—which the CCP plans to take over—he is determined to forge better relations with the tyrants in exchange for their goodwill, which is measured in dollars. He is chairman of Alibaba, a CCP-affiliated company.

Not surprisingly, Tsai wanted Morey fired. Worse, he defends the wholesale abuse of human rights in China, saying, “80%-90% of the population” are “very, very happy.” He doesn’t have the guts to talk to Catholics living under this nightmare regime.

The elites who run the NBA are in it for the money, and the money alone. They are infinitely more concerned about a gay slur than they are in wholesale violations of elementary human rights. Their venality is stunning.

Contact Adam Silver: adam@nba.com