Crews also tore down giant promotional banners showing James and other evidence of the match throughout Shanghai as Chinese netizens called for the games to be scrapped. #NBAgamesinChina

A worker removes a promotional banner of the NBA from a building in Shanghai, China on 10 October 2019. The banner shows a preseason game in China between the Brooklyn Nets and the Los Angeles Lakers in Shanghai on October 9, 2019. (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL / AFP)

SHANGHAI, China — The National Basketball Association (NBA) confirmed an annual exhibition game in China would go ahead on Thursday, rejecting calls to scrap the event over a free speech row that was ignited by an American basketball executive’s pro-democracy tweet.

Superstar LeBron James is set to lead his Los Angeles Lakers against the Brooklyn Nets in Shanghai, the first of two pre-season matches held each year to build on the league’s already huge popularity in China.

An intense Chinese backlash against the world’s top basketball league, triggered by a Houston Rockets executive’s tweet last week in support of Hong Kong’s democracy movement, had thrown the games and the NBA’s larger interests in China into doubt.

China had already yanked away the welcome mat with broadcasters cancelling plans to air the two pre-season games and Chinese NBA sponsors severing ties in protest.

Crews also tore down giant promotional banners showing James and other evidence of the match throughout Shanghai as Chinese netizens called for the games to be scrapped.

However, the NBA confirmed on Thursday afternoon the Shanghai game would go ahead.

“The Lakers and the Nets will face each other in the NBA China game in Shanghai beginning tonight at 19:30,” the NBA said on its verified Chinese social media account.