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But in trying to delicately navigate the controversy unleashed by a single pro-Hong Kong tweet from Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, Silver has quickly discovered what so many other Western businesses and politicians have found before him: there is no appealing to Beijing’s sense of reasonableness. When you stir China into a fit of pique, all you can do is grab on to the handrails and ride it out.

On Tuesday, with Silver in Tokyo for exhibition games between the Toronto Raptors and the Rockets, he issued a new statement on the Morey flap, saying that the “NBA will not put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say or will not say on (certain) issues.”

This was a clarification of sorts from Sunday, when in response to Morey’s tweet that read, “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong,” and the ensuing backlash from China, which included the severing of various NBA-related relationships, Silver had opened his initial prepared statement by saying that he recognized that the “views expressed” by Morey had “offended” many in China, which was “regrettable.”

Although that missive did include some boilerplate about allowing NBA employees to share their views, on the whole it read like the league upbraiding Morey for being offside with China. That position was reinforced by apologies from the Rockets ownership and players. Silver, no doubt aware of criticisms that he was rolling over and hoping for a belly rub from a Communist dictatorship, one credibly accused of various human-rights abuses, Tuesday made clear that freedom of speech was a big deal in his league, even if it meant “we will have to live with those consequences.”