NBA superstar LeBron James’ rebuke of Houston Rockets’ General Manager Daryl Morey for advocating for Hong Kong’s freedom has been met with strong pushback from pro-democracy Hong King protesters, who took to social media to ask whether the Lakers star has been “brainwashed” by Communist Chinese propaganda or simply “bought.”
LeBron James rips Daryl Morey, says Morey was uneducated. Says, “We do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negatives that come with that too.” Really. pic.twitter.com/ZTw6a3FZ5n
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 15, 2019
“We all talk about this freedom of speech, yes, we all do have freedom of speech, but at times there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you’re not thinking about others and you’re only thinking about yourself,” James told reporters before a game Monday when asked about the NBA-China controversy started by Morey simply tweeting “Fight For Freedom Stand With Hong Kong” before being pressured to delete it and apologize.
“I don’t want to get into a word or sentence feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand, and he spoke,” James continued. “And so many people could have been harmed not only financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually. So just be careful what we tweet and say and we do, even though, yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that, too.”
“The online platform LIHKG, the forum favored by Hong Kong’s protestors, was awash with criticism and handwringing Tuesday,” THR reports, citing a few examples of posts by outraged protesters, including “Has he been brainwashed by the Chinese Communist Party’s fake news or has he been bought?” – READ MORE