SHANGHAI'S SKYLINE IS breathtaking. The Oriental Pearl Radio & Television Tower looks like a giant ray gun pointed up to the heavens. The Shanghai Tower twists and climbs 128 stories into the clouds. The Shanghai World Financial Center showcases a trapezoid-shaped aperture at its peak so big that a helicopter could fly through it.
But as the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets stared out the windows of the dining hall in the Ritz-Carlton Shanghai, Pudong on Wednesday, Oct. 9, it was hard to notice anything other than the 30-foot banners of their likenesses being stripped off the side of a shopping mall across the street.