LeBron James: Trump Voters and China Critics Are ‘Uneducated’ and ‘Misinformed’ (VIDEO)
NBA superstar LeBron James is getting blasted from both sides of the political aisle and across NBA fandom, after he took Communist China’s side in its fight with pro-Democracy protesters.
Even worse, he criticized those who were defending the pro-Democracy protesters, namely, Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey. After tweeting his support for China’s pro-Democracy protesters in Hong Kong, Morey deleted the tweet after criticism and pressure from the NBA and the Chinese government.
The government of China threatened to cut off the NBA from the lucrative Chinese market, if they didn’t stop criticism among their ranks of their Democracy crackdown.
The Controversy
The controversy occurred just as the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets were in the country to play exhibition games and promote the league. China cancelled events, and there was fear the games would be cancelled as well. The teams did eventually play.
James reportedly helped behind the scenes to quell criticism while in China. Once he was back in the United States, however, he unleashed on Morey.
When asked about Morey’s support for the demonstrators, James said he shouldn’t have commented on the subject. He said he wasn’t educated on all the details. The situation recalls an incident in 2017, in which he said Americans who voted for Trump were uneducated.
Critics say James is concerned over losing money from his Nike contract, as his shoes are made in China. A number of Chinese companies cut their ties with the NBA and their products over the controversy. The Nike relationship (and his contract) remains intact.
In 2015, LeBron signed a $1 billion lifetime contract with Nike. That’s a lot of sneakers to be sold, and Nike needs cheap Chinese labor to make them.
LeBron’s Response
While criticizing Morey, he mentioned the financial harm the tweet could have caused.
“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 said.
“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. And, so many people could have been harmed, not only financially but physically, emotionally, spiritually. So, just be careful what we tweet and what we say, and what we do. Even though yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that too.”
Here’s video of James’ comments from NBC’s The Today Show.
James added comments later, but did not back down from his words.
“There’s issues all over the world. The best thing we can do is, if you feel passionate about it, talk about it. If you’re not … if you don’t have a lot of knowledge about it or you don’t quite understand it, I don’t think you should talk about it because it just puts you in a tough position.”
The backlash has been severe from all corners of sports media, except for ESPN and the NBA Network, which are only casually discussing the controversy. While ESPN has encouraged their anchors to speak out against President Donald Trump, they directly ordered their on-air talent not to bring up the NBA/China controversy when it erupted.
Michael Rapaport absolutely destroyed LeBron James in an interview with TMZ. You can view it here.
Even NBA players are disgusted with James’ words. That included former NBA player Andrew Bogut.
Bogut even retweeted video of protesters fighting back against violent Chinese police.
Enes Kanter of the Boston Celtics, who faced oppression in his home country of Turkey, also spoke out.
Meanwhile, protesters in Hong Kong burned LeBron James jerseys and said he only takes a stand when money is involved.
Hypocrisy
When it doesn’t involve his shoe contract in China, James is much more vocal on political issues.
In 2017, he called out people who voted for President Donald Trump, especially in his home state of Ohio. He said they weren’t educated on Trump or the state of the world. Trump won Ohio in 2016, despite James hosting a rally for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland prior to the election.
“At the end of the day, I don’t think a lot of people was educated,” he said at the time (grammar errors left intact). “And I think that’s one of the biggest problems that we have. When it becomes vote time, people are just not educated on either the individual or what’s going on in the state of the world right now. … I don’t think a lot of people are educated and they make choices and say things that are uneducated.
“And am I saying that the people of Ohio wasn’t educated? Am I saying that some of the other states that voted for him was uneducated? They could have been or they could not have been. But that doesn’t mean it was the right choice.”
That same year, he also called President Trump a “bum” after he rescinded an invitation to the NBA champion Golden State Warriors to visit the White House.
He later tried to justify his tweet to the press, insisting he wasn’t name-calling.
Many are saying James is now being hypocritical, picking and choosing to be political only when it doesn’t hurt him financially.
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