Chinese NBA legend Yao Ming urges us to better understand what is ‘specific to the game’ and to try ‘our best to avoid politics’.
He said this on Thursday in Beijing during a round table on sports in the context of Sino-American relations.
“As people who work in this industry, we need to have a better understanding of what is ‘inside’ the game and what is ‘outside it,’ and we will do everything we can to avoid (politics),” he said. revealed the most famous basketball player in China.
Although China has many basketball fans, it has not hosted an NBA game in five years following a political controversy.
The general manager of the Houston Rockets NBA team, Daryl Morey, expressed his support for Hong Kong on Twitter as the Chinese special administrative region experienced months of pro-democracy protests.
Recently, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced that he expects the league to play in China again, according to several media outlets.
Yao said what happened in 2019 was an “accident” and that Morey had ventured “into a minefield he didn’t know about.”
The NBA subsequently lost hundreds of millions of dollars due to the removal of the NBA from Chinese television until 2022.
The former player, aged 44, resigned from his post as president of the National Basketball Federation (CBA) at the end of October, lamenting the level of performance of the selection.
/ATS