China, like any successful totalitarian nation, knows that the key to assuring silence and compliance rests in oversized disciplinary action against even the slightest of uprisings. Nothing gets everyone in line like an occasional annihilation.

It certainly appears to be working with the National Basketball Association, which is apologizing and kowtowing to the Chinese government right now after the communist regime took great umbrage with an otherwise tame tweet from an otherwise anonymous general manager.

Over the weekend, Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey — well known among the most diehard of fans but almost no one else — dared to weigh in on the ongoing, occasionally violent pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

“Fight For Freedom. Stand With Hong Kong,” Morey tweeted to his 200,000 followers.

View photos (Twitter screenshot) More

That was it. And that was enough, apparently. China went crazy. It reportedly pulled sponsorship money from the Houston Rockets (which due to former player Yao Ming is the most popular team in the country), banned media coverage of Morey and ended any cooperation between the Chinese Basketball Association and the franchise.

The NBA quickly caved. It apologized to China, calling Morey’s statement “regrettable” and noting that it “deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China.” Morey himself walked it all back. Rockets star James Harden added his own “sorry” even though he had nothing to do with anything.

“We apologize. You know, we love China,” Harden said.

Just like that, a league and its employees (players, coaches, executives) who take great pride in expressing their opinions on all measures of political and social discourse got slapped into order.

All this because an American citizen dared to encourage a pro-democracy movement.

And you wonder why China is so powerful.

It’s hypocritical of the NBA, of course. It’s a bad look. It’s also modern reality.

The NBA is adamant about one thing: It respects Morey having an opinion and hasn’t suspended or disciplined him or anything like that. It’s a fair point, although having the league itself apologize for a single individual’s comment is a pretty good snuff on the nose.

“There is no doubt, the economic impact is already clear,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver told reporters in Tokyo on Monday. “There have already been fairly dramatic consequences from that tweet, and I have read some of the media suggesting that we are not supporting Daryl Morey, but, in fact, we have.

“I think as a values-based organization that I want to make it clear … Daryl Morey is supported in terms of his ability to exercise his freedom of expression,” Silver continued. “ ... The fact we have apologized to fans in China is not inconsistent with supporting someone’s right to have a point of view.”

View photos Daryl Morey created a headache for the NBA with one tweet. (AP) More

In the end, like pretty much every business on Earth, the league wants China’s money. It wants access to its 1.4 billion citizens. It wants to continue to stage preseason games there, sell jerseys there and broadcast its games there. (It’s not uncommon for 20 million to watch the NBA Finals despite the time difference.)

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