NBA Says Rockets PR Rep Was Out of Line Shutting Down Questions

(Bloomberg) -- The NBA said a public-relations representative for the Houston Rockets acted “inappropriately” in preventing a CNN reporter from asking two players questions about the basketball team’s controversy in China.

CNN’s Christina Macfarlane, reporting from Japan, asked James Harden and Russell Westbrook if they would refrain from speaking out on politics or social-justice matters after the team’s general manager enraged Chinese officials with a tweet supporting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. The team rep intervened to stop the players from answering.

“We’ve apologized to Ms. Macfarlane as this was inconsistent with how the NBA conducts media events,” a league spokesman said in an email.

Relations between the Rockets and the Chinese government turned sour last weekend when GM Daryl Morey tweeted his support for the protesters. Thanks to superstar Yao Ming, who played his entire career with the Rockets, the team is especially beloved in China.

Morey’s tweet, which was deleted, came as the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets were preparing for exhibition games in China, an important international market for the league. The matter was further inflamed when Commissioner Adam Silver spoke up for Morey’s free-speech rights.

That led local sponsors and broadcasters to pull their support for the two exhibition games, the first of which was played Thursday evening in Shanghai.

To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Soshnick in New York at ssoshnick@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net

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