A Rockets Player Immediately Regretted Tagging Graffiti On The Great Wall Of China

The Rockets were in China on Tuesday to play the New Orleans Pelicans in a preseason tradition known as the NBA’s Global Games. It’s nice little bit of international marketing, making sure potential fans in China can get an up-close and personal look at the NBA players they normally view from across the world, as a way of deepening the relationship with fans. When you attempt to bridge a culture gap, though, there are risks involved — and Rockets training camp invitee Bobby Brown walked right into one.

Brown was part of a Rockets team visit to the Great Wall of China before the game, and he scrawled his name and uniform number in chalk on the wall, posting a picture of it on his Weibo account (Weibo is the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, which is banned in the country).

It’s a fairly common practice among somewhat oblivious tourists, but when a professional athlete (who’s played in China for years, no less) does it and posts it on social media, he’s held to a different standard. He was flooded with angry responses from Weibo users, and was forced to issue an apology.

“We were out enjoying the Great Wall. I never been, it was my first time. I wrote my name on the wall in chalk. I saw different writings – I didn’t mean any harm by it. I made a mistake. I could have just put my hand over it and erased it. It will never happen again. I’ve been playing in China for three years now and I have the utmost respect for the Chinese culture, and the way of living here. I pretty much adapted, coming from the states, here for three years. My teammates, the fans in Shenzhen and the fans all over were great to me, and I just want to sincerely apologize for that.”

Not the best way to draw attention to yourself when you’re fighting for a roster spot, but hey — that’s Bobby’s prerogative.

(Via Houston Chronicle)