New ESPN article: A trip to China with Lebron, the Lakers, and the NBA

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With the teams set to play in the first of two scheduled exhibition games the next day and no explanation available as to why the promotional posters were being taken down, a state of confusion -- even fear -- enveloped the room, sources present in China last week told ESPN.

"Nobody knew what to do," one source said.

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THE LAKERS DEPARTED LAX on Monday, Oct. 7 for the 14½-hour journey -- and their plane had no Wi-Fi connection. As the teams crossed 15 time zones and the Pacific date line, the reaction to Morey's tweet continued to escalate.

"We had zero knowledge of it before we took off," LeBron James said of the backlash.

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By Wednesday, the league's second NBA Cares event, this one hosted by the Lakers, had been canceled by the Chinese government. Undeterred, and hoping to get their jetlagged legs moving and salvage a day of training camp for their group full of new faces, the Lakers went over to the Mercedes-Benz Arena to practice.

The basketball didn't last long.

After about 30 minutes of practice, the Lakers were rushed off the court by arena workers, sources told ESPN. The workers were tasked with sanding down and resurfacing the hardwood to remove the logos for the presenting sponsors of the China Games because those sponsors had pulled out.

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SILVER STOOD AT a microphone at the front of the beige-colored Grand Ballroom 2 on the same floor of the makeshift dining hall at the Ritz. With tall ceilings and rows of sturdy-back chairs in perfectly straight lines, the room looked as if it could have been set up for a chamber of commerce convention the next day.

In the ordinary setting the commissioner laid out the extraordinary situation, spending 10 to 15 minutes, according to a source present, appearing "vulnerable and transparent" as he detailed the issues and challenges facing the league.

He expressed to the players that the best thing for the league would be for the Nets and Lakers to become ambassadors for the sport, to show a positive front and face the questions that would come from the throng of nearly 200 reporters set to descend upon the hotel in mere hours. One of the league's core values is freedom of expression, Silver said, "it's what you guys stand for." And to not speak, he said, could lead to criticism for staying silent.

Silver opened up the floor. James raised his hand.

His question was related to Morey -- and the commissioner's handling of the Rockets' GM. James, to paraphrase, told Silver he knew that if a player caused the same type of uproar from something he said or tweeted, the player wouldn't be able to skate on it. There would be some type of repercussion. So, James wanted to know, what was Silver going to do about it in Morey's case?

Silver pushed back, reminding the players that the league never doled out discipline when they publicly criticized President Donald Trump. Morey was exercising the same liberty when he challenged China. Regardless of the financial fallout of one versus the other, that's not what should matter. He might have disliked the ramifications of Morey's tweet, but he would defend his right to say it.

But James wasn't done.

Morey wasn't there to answer questions, he countered. Silver hadn't spoken to the media in China either. Why would this fall on the players to address?

James told the room it was too much for the players to take on in that moment -- to explain a complicated issue with racial, socio-economic and geopolitical layers while visitors in China. It was time to follow the league's lead.

"Obviously, when he speaks up, people pay attention," a Nets source told ESPN.

Kyrie Irving, according to sources who were in the room, questioned whether it was worth playing the games in such a charged environment. He said he was there to play basketball games, and if a requirement for those games was dealing with the fallout that Morey's tweet created, he would rather not play at all.

After about 30 minutes, Silver and others exited the room to allow for a players-only meeting. And once the others were gone, the players worked to find a consensus. James told the room he wanted both teams in total agreement about how they would approach the rest of the trip. His instinct was to shield his colleagues from a near impossible public-relations chasm.

"It's always a responsibility with me as far as players, a protection for the players," James said on Monday. "That's always [on my mind]. I never speak for just me, things that just benefit me. I try to be educated as much as I can and speak from a pure heart of how can I protect not only me, but protect the players as well in that situation."

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SILVER HAD A breakout session with the teams' ownership and front-office personnel on the ground while the players huddled up.

Lakers GM Rob Pelinka, according to sources, echoed James' position to the commissioner. Advocating for the players, he thought, was a chance to build unity. If at the end of the day his 15 players believed their front office had their best interests at heart, then trust could be built. A small victory in a tough situation.

Silver eventually came back to the players: If they weren't prepared to do media, then the NBA wouldn't make them do it. End of story.

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The self-imposed media ban proved moot. The Chinese government canceled the pregame and postgame news conferences -- including Silver's -- for the Shanghai game, just as it had canceled the ancillary events that week. The feeling among NBA officials was that China viewed the games as the crown jewel. Anything that could potentially derail the games -- like a player echoing what Silver said in Tokyo supporting Morey -- needed to be eliminated.

After days of agitation, Chinese officials seemed to relent and hint that they too wanted to see the games played. While they didn't offer certainty that day, they essentially "nodded," according to an NBA China source.

For all the discomfort, the league had some leverage -- there are hundreds of millions of NBA fans in China, after all.

And as a tumultuous Wednesday concluded, everyone went to bed that night confident there would be a basketball game played the next day.

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