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On Friday, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley announced that he had sent a letter to NBA commissioner Adam Silver asking if the league would consider putting ‘Support Our Troops,’ ‘Back The Blue,’ or ‘Free Hong Kong’ on the back of jerseys for the NBA’s restart.
Hawley’s letter to the NBA is in response to the news that the league will allow players to put approved social justice slogans and causes on the back of their uniforms.
If @NBA is going to put social cause statements on uniforms, why not “Support our Troops” or “Back the Blue”? Or given how much $$ @nba makes in #China, how about “Free Hong Kong”! Today I wrote to Adam Silver to ask for answers pic.twitter.com/PthYR4OxmE
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 10, 2020
Less than two hours after Tweeting out his letter to Silver, Hawley shared another tweet showing ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski’s response to the letter: “fuck you.”
Don’t criticize #China or express support for law enforcement to @espn. It makes them real mad @Outkick pic.twitter.com/WJDxrotUBD
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 10, 2020
It’s probably a safe bet that Hawley CC’d many members of the press when he emailed his letter to Silver. Wojnarowski, who is arguably the most well-known sports reporter in North America with 4 million followers on Twitter, posted an apology later Friday afternoon.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 10, 2020
The NBA, China, and Hong Kong discussion has been a heated one dating back to October of 2019 when Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey tweeted ‘Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong’ expressing his support of major pro-democracy protests surrounding an extradition bill introduced in April.
China responded by flexing its muscle, telling the NBA and LeBron James to ‘shut up and dribble’ and the league obliged.
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Mark is an associate editor at BroBible. Follow him on Twitter @ItIsMarkHarris for the occasional good tweet. Feel free to contact him at Mark@BroBible.com.