Was Ralph , now Wang/Yao.

["James A. Hill" <jahill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Follow the money. You may just change your mind.
<Jim

Snip...
>One thing you can say about Ralph Nader, in addition to the snide comments,
the actual criticism, and everything else:
>he's not the lackey of corporate America
Snip...

>Bird

Now here's a subject we may both agree on.  Maybe not.  What do folks think?

Wang from the Mav's has gone AWOL from the clutches of the PRC and MAY have
decided that he doesn't want to be enslaved by the Chinese government
anymore and my guess is that he may actually prefer to live in a free
society, all the time.

Being a free agent, he will need to sign with a NBA team to continue playing
which puts the years of goodwill/future revenue built up by the NBA with
China at risk.

Now there is a question of Yao being allowed to leave PRC/China to come to
America at all.

Question then:  How should the NBA address these issues potentially created
by Wang?

1. Should they honor his contracts, signed under duress with PRC, if he
seeks and guts asylum here?

2. Should they honor his individual rights as provided by our society and
let the State Department sort it out?

3. Should they blackball him and exert pressure to make him return to China
knowing he may never be allowed to leave that county again?

4. ???????

This a multifaceted issue with pluses and minuses for any position taken.
It is now a basketball issue and as we don't have much reason to discuss the
draft this year ....