Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, is targeting the NBA after a new explosive report claimed that the sports league offered the legislator a “completely inaccurate” statement about its training academies in China.
ESPN released an explosive report on Wednesday alleging that the NBA youth program in China was riddled with human rights abuses.
The report quoted a letter Blackburn received from Mark Tatum, NBA deputy commissioner and chief operating officer, responding to her inquiry about reports that the league continued to operate its training center in Xinjiang, a place she noted was “one of the world’s worst humanitarian zones. “
“The NBA has not been involved with the Xinjiang basketball academy for over a year, and the relationship has ended,” Tatum told the senator.
However, two sources disputed Tatum’s comment to ESPN that the league has plans to leave Xinjiang in the spring of 2019.
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“A coach said the league was still looking for other coaches to move there over the summer and that the league’s statement to Blackburn was ‘completely inaccurate,'” ESPN reported.
“They were still trying to get people out,” the coach told ESPN. “It didn’t end because [Tatum] he said, ‘Let’s get this over with.’ “
A Blackburn spokesperson told Fox News that the senator “intends to immediately follow up with the NBA to get to the bottom of the league’s presence in Xinjiang.”
“This report is disturbing and the NBA needs to voluntarily correct the record of its participation,” Blackburn reacted to ESPN’s exposure.
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In a statement to Fox News, Tatum said the league ended its participation in the Xinjiang basketball academy in June 2019 and that it is “re-evaluating the NBA Academy program in China,” citing concerns from the ESPN report. as “disturbing”.
“We launched this elite nonprofit player development initiative in 2016 working to support three existing basketball development centers in China operated by local sports authorities. Our role was limited to providing three coaches at each academy, none of which it has been alleged to have been involved in any wrongdoing, ”added Tatum.
ESPN reported Wednesday that young participants in the NBA program were physically beaten by Chinese instructors and were not provided with the proper education, despite Commissioner Adam Silver’s prior commitment that education would be “central” to the program.
“A former league employee compared the atmosphere when working in Xinjiang to ‘World War II Germany’,” ESPN reported.
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The ESPN report detailed how the NBA training academies, which launched in 2016, appeared to be under the control of the Chinese government with a coach who worked for the program and called it “an athlete training ground.”
“We were basically working for the Chinese government,” a former coach told ESPN.
Several NBA employees filed complaints with the league about how they witnessed Chinese coaches “hit teenage players” and the lack of education the young participants were receiving.
A former coach told ESPN that he saw a Chinese coach “shoot a ball in the face of a young player at point-blank range and then” kick him in the stomach. “
According to ESPN, NBA officials asked current and former employees not to speak to the sports network about the exposure with an email from a public relations official saying: “Don’t mention that the NBA has advised you not to respond. “
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“You can’t have it both ways,” a former employee told ESPN. “You can’t be here in February promoting Black History Month and be in China, where they are in re-education camps, and all the people you are associating with are hitting the kids.”
Tatum told ESPN that the league is “reevaluating” and “considering other opportunities” for the show.
Over the past year, the NBA’s intense relationship with China has been analyzed after league players and coaches have largely refrained from criticizing the country’s human rights violations and expressing support for Hong Kong.
Earlier this month, criticism of the NBA’s ties to China was renewed after it was discovered that customers were prohibited from ordering custom equipment that reads “Free Hong Kong” on its online store.
The store’s operator, Fanatics, suggested that the phrase was “inadvertently prohibited” and the ban was lifted. However, days later, the NBA removed all of the custom gear from its online store.
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Prominent NBA ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski also raised his eyebrows when he sent Senator Josh Hawley, R-Maryland, a profane response to the legislator’s criticism of the league’s decision of “pre-approved social justice slogans” as “Censor Support” for Chinese Communist Party Implementation and Criticism Law.
Wojnarowski issued an apology and was temporarily suspended over the network.
