Last month, People’s Daily, a Communist Party newspaper, published what looked like a rare opinion column by a foreigner, the basketball star LeBron James. In it, he praised basketball as a cultural bridge between countries. The problem: Mr. James never wrote it.
Mr. James had been talking to Chinese reporters while on a trip there, and the newspaper turned those comments into an essay with his name on it. Being depicted as the author of a piece in People’s Daily, the voice of the ruling party, is no small matter; it suggested that Mr. James was endorsing Beijing’s message at a time of deep tensions with Washington.
For Adam Silver, the commissioner of the N.B.A., that crossed a line. “Taking words somebody said and then making it seem as a first-person Op-Ed,” Mr. Silver told The New York Times, in his first comments about the incident, “would not be appropriate.”
The backlash in America to what people thought was an opinion piece was swift. Conservative commentators said Mr. James was letting Beijing use his fame to whitewash the image of the authoritarian government. One website said the N.B.A. was “groveling to the communists.”
The incident was only the latest reminder of the potential political minefield the league faces as it resumes play in China after a six-year absence.
The Brooklyn Nets will play the Phoenix Suns in Macau on Sunday night, the second of two preseason games. The games are the result of a yearslong effort by the league — and by Patrick Dumont, a casino mogul turned team owner — to regain its footing in China, a hugely important market.
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The post Did LeBron James Write for a Communist Paper? No, but China Said He Did. appeared first on New York Times.
