The National Basketball Association announced it would partner with yet another repressive regime in its ongoing development agreement with Abu Dhabi, a country with a history of human rights abuses.
Despite questions from the media about when a far-left sports organization would partner with a country that suppresses political dissent, religion and freedom of speech, NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum tried to walk a tightrope on the issue, arguing that while the league is opposed to human rights violations in any form, it would still have no problem partnering with Abu Dhabi.
“We condemn human rights violations wherever they occur,” Tatum said. saidAccording to The New York TimesTatum added that the league's “sports engagement” has been “overwhelmingly positive,” as if that “engagement” could help align Muslim countries with Western values.
Indeed, this argument has become a pillar of the NBA, as the league continues to partner with repressive regimes in places like China and Rwanda, while NBA commissioner Adam Silver tries to claim that this “engagement” will nudge those regimes toward reform.
In 2021, Silver argued that “engagement is better than isolation” when it comes to relations with China.
“I would like to take a step back and restate the NBA's mission: to improve people's lives through basketball, and we believe that exporting NBA basketball to China and nearly every country in the world continues to align with our mission. As a political science major, I believe engagement is better than isolation. The so-called boycott of China, given the legitimate criticism of the Chinese system, does not advance the agenda of those who seek to bring about change in the world. Working with the Chinese only on NBA basketball has been a positive for building relations between the two superpowers.”
It's a weak excuse, considering the NBA has long supported left-wing efforts to criticize America and Americans they deem not progressive enough on social issues.
This is the same lame story Silver peddled to the media in 2019, when the NBA left came together to scathingly criticize former Houston Rockets coach Daryl Morey, who dared to post a simple tweet saying, “Fight for freedom and stand with Hong Kong” in support of the pro-democracy movement trying to preserve freedom after Red China seized Hong Kong from the UK.
The league's deep-pocketed Chinese partners were furious at Morey for the message, and Silver and his allies quickly pressured the Rockets to deny Morey his democratic wishes. A year later, he resigned as general manager.
In the end, it's clear that money speaks far louder than the NBA's purported “progressive” values, and the league is only trying to impose its “values” on soft, easy targets in the U.S., while at the same time ignoring even more egregious violations by its highly paid partners.
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