A young boy successfully baited the dance cam at an NBA game into broadcasting a t-shirt with political connotations for a few seconds, before the cameraman panned away quickly.

During a timeout at the opening night game between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday, Oct. 22, the boy managed to catch the attention of the dance cam operator by dancing while holding up a Clippers shirt.

But as soon as the camera was trained on him, he made the switch swiftly, and held up a new shirt that read "Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong".

the best clip to start the NBA season is this kid baiting the broadcast into flashing a "Fight for freedom stand with Hong Kong" sign on TV and then the cameraman pans away pic.twitter.com/B30ubY63CX

— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) October 23, 2019

The camera then quickly panned away.

Chinese fans noticed something amiss

This particular segment was apparently cut from the video that was eventually shown in China, and it did not go unnoticed among the Chinese fans.

Great job dude. The Chinese are trying hard to censor them by giving cutting the live😂 lots of Chinese starts to realize something’s wrong now😂#StandWithHK pic.twitter.com/ljOk6OpQFx

— Ideas_are_bulletproof (@heyheysonsonhey) October 23, 2019

Pro-Hong Kong protest t-shirts given out at NBA games

Before the game started at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, supporters of the Hong Kong protesters were distributing pro-Hong Kong t-shirts to basketball fans.

Taking aim at LeBron James, activists gave out tens of thousands of ‘Stand with Hong Kong’ T-shirts at a Clippers vs Lakers game. #HongKongProtests pic.twitter.com/CDjaFx0keq

— South China Morning Post (@SCMPNews) October 23, 2019

A GoFundMe page, created by an activist for this purpose, ended up raking in US$43,000 (S$58,600) within 48 hours, Yahoo Sports reported.

The funds managed to get them a total of 13,000 t-shirts.

Similar t-shirts were also handed out before the Toronto Raptors season opener on Tuesday, Oct. 22, held at Toronto, Canada.

Thousands of free Stand With Hong Kong shirts were handed out before the Raptors' season opener 👕 #Toronto #TorontoRaptors #Raptors #RTZ #WeTheNorth #ScotiabankArena #StandWithHongKong #FreeHongKong pic.twitter.com/3cR8FOZ8yQ

— blogTO (@blogTO) October 23, 2019

Background

The incident comes in the midst of a controversy the NBA was mired in with China recently.

The NBA, which has commercial interests in China, apologised for a pro-Hong Kong tweet that Houston Rockets' general manager Daryl Morey sent out.

The move sparked widespread criticisms from American senators and basketball fans alike, who thought that the NBA has crossed a line when they submitted to Chinese sensitivities, despite free speech being protected constitutionally in the United States.

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Top image adapted via Rod Breslau's Twitter