As the Brooklyn Nets return from China, signs that owner Tsai has helped repair the NBA's business relationships (and helped his firm Alibaba)

Substack sports columnist Steve Lichtenstein, in his Oct. 12 The Too-Early Preseason Assessments Of Nets' Draft Haul, wrote mainly about the four (of five) first-round draft picks who played in the first exhibition game, but added a bonus note about 6'11" 22-year old Fanbo Zeng, who played in the first NBA exhibition in China in six years:

I’m over it now, but the ploy I assume was spurred by ownership to play an obviously undeserving China native during Friday’s exhibition had me seething. Ok, maybe if you’re going to have Zeng on the training camp roster, giving him six minutes during the second and fourth quarters can be justified as a goodwill gesture to the hosts. But did the Nets have to play him in the overtime? The Suns targeted Zeng mercilessly by forcing him to switch onto their ballhandlers, where he got toasted, and then the Nets rarely passed him the ball on offense.

That helped lead to a loss. Added Lichtenstein:

Joseph Tsai, from all appearances, wants a player of Asian descent on the team. The Nets gave a similarly ill-suited Jacky Cui five games last season before he suffered a horrific knee injury.

Note that Zeng did not play in last night's Nets win. 

Unlike some beat reporters, Lichtenstein--who also covers other New York sports--has no need to play nice with management, so he calls it like he sees it. 

Why Tsai 

Tsai, the NBA's most important owner (er, Governor) of Asian heritage--he's described as Taiwanese Canadian but is Chairman of the Chinese conglomerate Alibaba and has homes, as far as I know, in San Diego, New York, and Hong Kong--has a role in boosting Chinese basketball, funding scholarships for promising players to come to the United States.

He also is a chief conduit between the NBA and restoration of its lucrative business in China, which was severed in 2019 after Houston Rockets executive Daryl Morey tweeted support for Hong Kong, prompting fury from China and a notorious "open letter" from Tsai backing the Chinese regime.

Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai is the face of NBA's uneasy China relationship, ESPN reported in April 2022. Presumably that relationship has stabilized. (Remember, no progress without profit.)

And if the Nets, by signing a marginal player, boost their stature in China--where they're already the third most popular team--well, that's a business decision.

That said, as NetsDaily reported, "Chinese fans on various websites expressed frustration with Nets coach Jordi Fernandez not giving Zeng an opportunity" in the second game. 

It's a business

For Tsai, it's way more than basketball. From NetsDaily:

The league also announced a couple of deals with Chinese basketball authorities, one of them that also benefited Joe Tsai’s Alibaba. The STDaily which tracks science and technology in China reported that NBA China and Alibaba Cloud announced a “multi-year partnership,” with Alibaba Cloud becoming the official cloud computing and A.I. partner of NBA China.

The partnership was jointly announced by Alibaba Group Chairman and Brooklyn Nets Governor Joe Tsai and NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum on the eve of the 2025 NBA China Games.