NBA commissioner Adam Silver held a tense meeting with players from the
Brooklyn Nets and
Los Angeles Lakers last week when he arrived in Shanghai, sources told ESPN's Rachel Nichols.
During the meeting, sources said, several prominent players voiced frustration about their perception that they were being put in the middle of the dispute between the NBA and China, and they said they were unhappy about being asked to address the situation by local Chinese reporters before Silver himself was scheduled to do so.
The relationship between the league and China was disrupted after
Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of anti-government protesters in Hong Kong on Oct. 4. Morey later deleted the tweet and apologized. Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta
denounced the tweet and said the Rockets were "not a political organization" and that Morey did not speak for the team.
During the meeting with the players, sources said, Silver was directly asked whether anything would happen to Morey, as several players said they believed that if a player had cost the NBA millions of dollars because of a tweet, there would be repercussions.