Inside LeBron James' and Adam Silver's make-or-break moments in China

SHANGHAI'S SKYLINE IS breathtaking. The Oriental Pearl Radio & Television Tower looks like a giant ray gun pointed up to the heavens. The Shanghai Tower twists and climbs 128 stories into the clouds. The Shanghai World Financial Center showcases at its peak a trapezoid-shaped aperture so big that a helicopter could fly through it.

But as the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets stared out the windows of the dining hall in the Ritz-Carlton Shanghai, Pudong on Wednesday, Oct. 9, it was difficult for them to notice anything other than the 30-foot banners of their likenesses being stripped off the side of a shopping mall across the street.

With the teams set to play the first of two scheduled exhibition games the next day and no explanation available as to why the promotional posters were being taken down, a state of confusion -- even fear -- enveloped the room, sources present in China last week told ESPN.

"Nobody knew what to do," one source said. As most NBA fans know by now, it all started with an image Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted on Oct. 4 to show support for protesters in Hong Kong. Morey quickly deleted the tweet, but the damage was done. What began on Twitter was becoming an international debacle.

"If this was tweeted by the Grizzlies' GM or Phoenix, it wouldn't have caused the same impact," an NBA China employee told ESPN. The Rockets, who drafted former NBA and Chinese player Yao Ming, are the most popular U.S. team in China.

The issue of China's sovereignty had been drilled into Team USA players who traveled to China for the FIBA World Cup just weeks before. One player from USA Basketball told ESPN that he "couldn't believe" Morey would take on the issue with a tweet after the way Team USA was warned about its complications.

It was with this backdrop that the Lakers and Nets buckled their seatbelts for their lengthy flights.

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