NBA commissioner Adam Silver wants China to host games again.
“I think we will bring back games to China at some point,” Silver said Thursday while speaking at a conference at Columbia University, according to The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov.
The NBA hasn’t had a game in China since the 2019 preseason. It received backlash after then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey shared a tweet supporting the anti-government protests in Hong Kong. China then refused to broadcast the two contests it hosted between the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets.
“We had a well-known incident there pre-pandemic with a tweet, and China’s government took us off the air for a period of time,” Silver said. “We accepted that. We stood by our values.”
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV ended an 18-month blackout of the NBA in March 2022.
Silver claims the league lost hundreds of millions of dollars due to the backlash.
The league has since created relationships with other countries, holding games in Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, and France over the past 12 months.
“We’re happy to deal directly with the issues. Nothing these days is completely clean,” Silver said Thursday. “We came to the decision collectively as a league that by expanding our game internationally … it’s part of our mission to create health and wellness around the sport of basketball.”
The Chinese national team played against the Sacramento Kings, Charlotte Hornets, and San Antonio Spurs at the California Classic during the 2024 Summer League.
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