The drama surrounding China and the NBA seemed to put the Los Angels Lakers’ scheduled preseason games in China in jeopardy.
Per recent reports, however, it now looks as though those games will be going ahead as planned.
As of now, all indications are that the Lakers/Nets game in China on Thursday will go on as scheduled, sources tell @TheAthleticNBA @Stadium.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) October 9, 2019
The controversy first began when Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey sent out a tweet supporting pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong. Since then, Chinese officials have shown clear signs of wanting to pull away from the NBA.
For the NBA, this change could hold serious financial implications as China is one of the league’s largest international markets.
For the Lakers, they are in the middle of this incident due to circumstance, as the two preseason games, one in Shanghai and one in Shenzhen, have been scheduled for quite some time.
For the moment, it seems as though those games will in fact happen.
