The L.A. Lakers star tried to clarify his comments — 'My team and this league just went through a difficult week' — but many in Hong Kong argued that any such unpleasantness was little compared to police brutality.
Said one user on LIHKG: "Martin Luther King Jr. fought for civil rights, but LeBron James supports totalitarianism?"
"Let me clear up the confusion," he wrote in one of his posts. "I do not believe there was any consideration for the consequences and ramifications of the tweet. I’m not discussing the substance. Others can talk about that." But James' clarification appears to have generated only more ridicule in Hong Kong and among those sympathetic to the city's pro-democracy movement.
The reaction to James' comments online in mainland China, meanwhile, was overwhelmingly positive. "He is the real hero of America," said one user on the Twitter-like Weibo service, calling James "an NBA friend that we can welcome in China." Thousands of similar statements supporting James have proliferated.
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