By Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s state-run People’s Daily newspaper on Monday published an essay about Chinese basketball it said was written by LeBron James, but a representative for the NBA star said on Thursday that the article was based on a series of interviews.
The paper, better known as the mouthpiece of China’s ruling Communist Party, had said James authored the Sept. 8 essay, “Basketball is a Bridge that Connects Us”, a tribute to Chinese players and fans of the sport written in the first person.
“LeBron James Pens an Article in the People’s Daily,” read a post published on the newspaper’s official WeChat account.
On Thursday, a representative for the four-time NBA champion said James did not write the article and that it was based on a “series of interviews” he did in China that were “transcribed and put on the People’s Daily website.”
The newspaper did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside business hours.
James, who is entering a record-breaking 23rd season in the top-flight North American league, has visited China 15 times. The publication of the essay came as he wrapped up visits to Shanghai and Chengdu as part of a tour marking the 20th anniversary of his first Nike tour of Asia.
The NBA enjoyed decades of fast growth in China, where some 300 million play the game, ballooning into a business said to be worth more than $4 billion. The league was one of the most popular U.S. cultural exports to the country until 2019 when Daryl Morey, then general manager of the Houston Rockets team, made a Twitter post in support of anti-government protesters in Hong Kong.
The fallout was swift. China’s state broadcaster CCTV stopped showing NBA games for 28 months, local sponsors cut ties, and Rockets merchandise vanished from stores. NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in 2022 that financial losses amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Six years later, despite renewed U.S.-China trade tensions, the NBA’s relationship with its most important market outside North America is much improved. In the past three years, CCTV has gradually returned to broadcasting NBA games and Chinese companies have signed deals with the league.
The NBA is gearing up next month for two pre-season games in Macau, the first time since 2019 that NBA teams will play on Chinese soil.
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Daniel Wallis)
