ESPN reports that the NBA will return to playing games on Chinese soil for the first time since 2019, as the Phoenix Suns and Brooklyn Nets will face off in two preseason games in Macao next year.
This ends a six-year period of no games on Chinese soil because then-Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey supported protests in Hong Kong against the Chinese government.
While Morey got into trouble for his support for Hong Kong, the NBA did stand by him and defend his freedom of expression although it cost the league hundreds of millions as Chinese sponsors and broadcast partners backed out of their NBA association. From 2004 to 2019, 17 NBA teams played a total of 28 preseason games in China, which came to an abrupt stop after Morey’s actions.
Adam Silver and other NBA executives have carefully been repairing the relationship for over six years, with China considered to have the most basketball fans in the world. The country is in love with the game, but Morey’s actions in 2019 led to NBA access being restricted in the country, something which has slowly changed.
At the time of Morey tweeting his support for Hong Kong in 2019, the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers were in China to play preseason games which ended up endangering the lives of the players on the teams including LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, and more.
One of the key factors behind making the NBA’s return to Chinese territory possible was the newest ownership group in the league – the Dallas Mavericks. The games in Macao will be played at the Venetian Arena, which is part of the Las Vegas Sands conglomerate controlled by the Adelson family, the majority ownership group of the Dallas Mavericks.
Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont, who is also the Chief Operating Officer and President of the Las Vegas Sands, was an integral driver of the NBA’s new Macao partnership.
From what I’ve seen over the last two years at the NBA’s preseason games in Abu Dhabi, this is a tremendous opportunity to build the basketball culture in the nation, especially when it comes to youth development. NBA games are accompanied by youth camps and other activities that give young players an opportunity to get better that they wouldn’t get otherwise.
This is a key business relationship for the NBA, and it seems they’ve almost recovered it after over half a decade of frosty feelings because of what Morey tweeted in 2019.
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