Boston Celtics games were abruptly pulled from the Chinese internet Thursday after a center on the team, Enes Kanter, said on social media that the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, was a “brutal dictator,” citing his government’s repressive policies in Tibet.
The incident could spell fresh trouble for the NBA in China. The league has millions of devoted fans there but has also just spent two years mending its image in the country after a Houston Rockets executive tweeted support in 2019 for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
That tweet, by Daryl Morey, who now works for the Philadelphia 76ers, was quickly deleted, though not before setting off an uproar in China.