Charles Barkley Defends LeBron James’ China Stance…’Everybody was really unfair’

Lakers superstar LeBron James always speaks his mind, and that’s exactly what happened when Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey decided to support Hong Kong protesters. LeBron said Morey was uneducated on the issue, and faced serious backlash. Well, Charles Barkley sure supported him.

“I’m not here to judge how the league handled the situation,” LeBron said. “I just think that when you’re misinformed or you’re not educated about something — I’m just talking about the tweet itself — you never know the ramifications that can happen. We all see what that did — not only did for our league but for all of us in America and people in China as well. Sometimes you have to think through the things that you say and may cause harm not only for yourself but for the majority of people. And I think that’s just a prime example.”

According to Barkley, people were unfair to the Lakers superstar.

“I thought everybody was really unfair to LeBron,” Barkley said. “Everybody does business in China. Every American company does business in China. Why should LeBron not be able to protect his financial interests — and the NBA and Nike?”

When asked about LeBron’s decision to remain silent about other human rights issues for other people across the world, Barkley said LeBron has the right to choose his battles.

“Everybody don’t have to pick every battle to fight,” he said. “LeBron is passionate about the things he wants to be passionate about. We don’t get to tell him what we want him to talk about.”

Most NBA names decided to stay out of the whole mess, but Barkley decided to hit the problem in the core. He mentioned Nike and NBA, but also discussed the reason most people have to stay out of anything like this.“Why do all these other companies get to invest in China and LeBron doesn’t have to protect his business interests?” Barkley said. “He’s not going to be able to change anything. … It’s not fair for them to act like LeBron’s gonna save the world.”

Hopefully, everyone will forget this sooner or later. The NBA doesn’t need this scandal at the beginning of the regular season.