Does the NBA need China more than China needs the NBA?

That issue of leverage in a rapidly escalating standoff is likely to shape the next moves in this unlikely geopolitical clash between Beijing and its most popular American sports league. The crisis will come to a head with NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s scheduled visit to Shanghai on Wednesday.

It isn’t much of a question for most of the foreign companies that play by China’s rules and find themselves balancing their commitment to democratic civil liberties against their pursuit of the market’s billions of dollars. In almost every case of an international business enterprise stoking the authoritarian regime’s ire, the company bowed to Chinese pressure, quickly apologizing in fear of losing access to a powerful economy of 1.4 billion people.

But the NBA may be more strongly positioned to push back than other U.S. businesses that have run afoul of the Chinese government. It’s the most powerful sports league in the country and plays such an outsize role in local sporting culture that China without the NBA is increasingly unimaginable. Shortly before he became president, in fact, Xi Jinping went to a Lakers game in Los Angeles.

It was a useful reminder of how much both sides of this dispute rely on each other: China is a huge market for any enterprise, but there’s only one NBA. There are other hotels, airlines and clothing brands. NBA basketball is irreplaceable.