NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Tuesday that the league will not be regulating the speech of players, employees, and team owners as he sought to defuse a fight over a Houston Rockets exec backing protests in Hong Kong. China has reacted with fury to the weekend tweet. Sponsors have pulled their backing, the Chinese government has demanded an apology, and Chinese state television announced Tuesday it had canceled the planned broadcast of two NBA exhibition games due to be played in the country this week. The NBA initially appeared apologetic over the incident, saying it regretted the remarks from Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey. But Silver issued a stronger statement early Tuesday morning ahead of a news conference in Tokyo. Silver said the league “will not put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees, and team owners say or will not say on these issues,” and added: “It is inevitable that people around the world... will have different viewpoints over different issues. It is not the role of the NBA to adjudicate those differences.”
