Philadelphia 76ers Eject Fan for "Free Hong Kong" Poster

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The NBA fancies itself as the most progressive sports league in North America, yet its treatment of its black players, from the archaic draft process to suppressing rules and fines (which are collectively bargained, it should be noted), flies in the face of that entire argument. With the advent of catchy concepts such as “Moreyball” and “The Process,” players, 70 percent of whom are black, became less human beings and more assets, stripped of all agency and power.

This mentality starts with the NBA draft, where prospects are essentially auctioned off to the highest bidder — or, in this case, the lowest. It’s no surprise Sterling wanted the No. 1 pick so badly. Players are forced to live and play in cities even if they don’t want to. And when teams are done with them, they can be shipped off at a moment’s notice. When these same players dare to decide to play where they want, they are branded disloyal, ungrateful even. Comic sans, anyone?

The league’s fight against tampering, on its face, is about parity for all 30 teams. But what it’s really about is property ownership. An NBA contract ties a player to a team, thus making the player the property of the owner, who is threatened when an opposing player attempts to recruit a player on the team. And when the owners couldn’t keep their players from leaving, via free agency at least, they created an incentive to bribe players into staying, figuring young black men couldn’t turn down the extra tens of millions of dollars. But even these so-called “supermax” contracts haven’t completely worked.

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"We're strongly dissatisfied and oppose Adam Silver's claim to support Morey's right to freedom of expression," CCTV said in a statement.

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