Enes Kanter Freedom to Boston

[joe dokes]

Is he still on the Celtics?
In NJ on 2/24 730 pm
in Det 2/26 at noon
In Indiana 2/27 5pm

Edit: d'oh...never mind. "speaker" no longer means the guy will actually be there to speak. I gotta get with the times.....

 

[jose melendez]

I love the guy, but he's way out over his skis. Yeah, he might be on a roster if he weren't political, but he wouldn't be getting a lot of time.

His heart is in the right place, and some of the time his head is too, but he is letting himself be used too easily too.

 

[slamminsammya]

Blackballing him as he focuses on abuses in China? How about blackballing him as he attempts to close someone out from 2018 in 2022?

 

[The Social Chair]

He's crossed the line into right wing troll territory. Enjoy your CPAC conferences.

 

[joe dokes]

We never saw much Angry Brad. His response a week or 2 ago when Kanter says the Celtics "didn't support him" comes close:
https://www.boston.com/sports/morning-sports-update/2022/03/09/brad-stevens-responds-to-enes-freedom-comments-celtics-political-statements/

“Hypocrites!” Freedom tweeted, adding that he believed the team (and the NBA) has shown a double-standard in making political statements on behalf of human rights.
“Why is it okay to speak up about human rights violations there but not in other countries?” Freedom asked. “Is there not much profit from Russia?”

Freedom specifically cited his decision to wear special shoes in 2021 that showed support for Taiwan as an example of the difference. Then a member of the Celtics, he claimed that the team did not support his choice.
“How is it fair when I wore shoes to bring awareness about human rights violations around the world, Celtics begged me to remove them and threatened to ban me,” Freedom wrote. “Celtics now wear Ukrainian flag pins.”

On Tuesday, Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald spoke with Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens about the matter. Stevens offered a different version of events.
According to Stevens, the issue with Freedom’s shoes at the time was specific to a possible NBA uniform policy violation.

“Here’s exactly what happened,” Stevens told Murphy. “I was actually at home, and when he decided to wear the sneakers, there was some concern – and I didn’t even know until the end of the first quarter — that there was a potential uniform or dress code violation. I don’t know what was said – I can’t imagine that phrasing was said — but the question to me was what to do about Enes’ shoes.”
“I said I think that he’s fine, and let me double check with the NBA to see if there’s any uniform violation,” Stevens continued. “Double-checked, fine, and he wore those the rest of the game and he wore whatever he wanted the rest of the year. It’s interesting, because I feel really good that we truly sat here and supported him and his right to express himself and his freedom of speech, and I even told him the next day that you know I’ve always done that.”
After the follow-up conversation, in which Stevens said he reaffirmed his support for Freedom but asked to be notified in advance the next time so he wouldn’t be “checking on these things in the middle of the first quarter from my couch at home,” the Celtics’ executive said there was no more discussion of it.
“We didn’t talk about anything after that, because we weren’t checking from that point forward. Wear whatever you want,” Stevens recalled.
Freedom was traded by Boston in February to Houston, who released him several days later. Freedom remains a free agent.

 

[mikeford]

the Celtics are 15-3 since getting rid of this guy.

 

[kazuneko]

Blackballing him as he focuses on abuses in China? How about blackballing him as he attempts to close someone out from 2018 in 2022?

To be fair, he might have caught on somewhere to ride the bench if not for his activism. Except for his stance on China, he's exactly the type of positive attitude guy who can be used situationally that you might not mind as a 4th string center. But he'd certainly never get a job for more than the minimum either way..

 

[kazuneko]

We never saw much Angry Brad. His response a week or 2 ago when Kanter says the Celtics "didn't support him" comes close:
https://www.boston.com/sports/morning-sports-update/2022/03/09/brad-stevens-responds-to-enes-freedom-comments-celtics-political-statements/

I always felt that he knew his career wasn't going to last much longer and decided that he'd make a statement about China while he still had a chance to do so as an NBA player. I'm sure he knew at the time that would mean that this would be his last year in the league, but probably figured leaving after making a stance would give him a bigger platform as an activist. Towards that end, it now seems like he's exaggerating how the Cs responded to garner more attention. This leaves me ambivalent about how he's handling things now. On the one hand, his appearance on Tucker was a disaster and made it seem like he might end up used as a tool to attack black athletes by the right wing media. That said, I'm not a big fan of how the NBA has handled things with China (particularly the Morey situation last year) and would like them to get more negative attention for what actually is a hypocritical stance.

 

[benhogan]

I was genuinely positive on minimum salary EKF for specific matchups to start this season. He was always a bucket against 2nd units.

BUT he lost a lot of strength in the last year. He use to have a vice grip on the ball and finish around the hoop at a high level. Not anymore. The one power he had is gone

 

[chilidawg]

NY Times article on Mr. Freedom. Not a lot new in it, but a good recap of his activism.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/sports/basketball/enes-kanter-freedom-nba-activism.html?campaign_id=144&emc=edit_wkdr_20220326&instance_id=56690&nl=the-weekender&regi_id=119064751&segment_id=86654&te=1&user_id=3238eb63e4b2020a283d232e5574f2c1

 

[Van Everyman]

Good piece. Brad has handled this well.