I was pleased to see NBA Commissioner Adam Silver say this with respect to the controversy over Houston Rockets’ General Manager Daryl Morey’s tweet in support of the protest movement in Hong Kong:
The NBA will not put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say or will not say. We simply could not operate that way.
The NBA faces the potential of a backlash in China that could impact the league’s business interests there.
That could reduce the profits of the league and players and owners.
But the NBA is putting principles over profits here and that is a good thing.
We have faced this issue a number of times over the years at USV and we have tried to do the same.
We have also been on boards of companies that have faced this issue over the years and we have advocated for this approach.
It is not an easy choice. Companies have employees to pay, families to feed, and customers to serve. And principles are not always shared by everyone and the lines are not always clear
But one thing is for sure. The search for profits can lead a founder, a CEO, a team, a Board, and a Company to forget their principles and that is never a good thing.
