Enes Kanter Freedom achieved stardom in the NBA after a lifetime of hard work to hone his basketball skills and had it all taken away because of his staunch defense of human rights. But the NBA didn’t blackball the 6’10 Swiss-born center of Turkish descent for denouncing human rights abuses in Turkey.
They only canceled him when he spoke out against China and Nike.
In an exclusive sit-down interview with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle at the Republican National Convention, Kanter Freedom spoke about the goodwill and support his human rights campaign received from the league and fellow players until he started speaking out against the persecution of Uyghur Muslimes in China – the NBA’s business partner – and the financial rewards Nike reaps from the use of Uyghur slave labor in that same Communist police state.
“Until 2021, when I was going against the Turkish dictator [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, [the NBA] actually, they got my back. Adam Silver, the [NBA]commissioner, all the players, and pretty much all the front offices that I played for, they had my back, and, you know, the day I started to criticize China and their human rights violations, I promise you, like the whole support stopped.
“And I was like, ‘I’m confused, I don’t talk about politics. This is a human rights issue. We’re talking about 3 million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps right now, getting tortured and raped every day. And, I had a conversation with Adam Silver, I had a conversation with so many of my teammates. They said, ‘Well,’ especially my teammates, they said, ‘Well, we love you. We support you. But we just cannot do it out loud.
“I was like, ‘Why?’ They said, ‘Well, we have shoe deals. We have endorsement deals. We want to get another contract.’ I asked them one simple question: I was like, put yourself in their shoes. If your mother, if your sister, if your daughter was in those concentration camps, getting raped and tortured every day. Would you still pick money and business over your morals, values, and principles?
“They usually turn around and leave the room.’
The fear of harsh consequences for offending China – who puts billions of dollars into the NBA’s pockets every year – wasn’t just felt by Kanter Freedom’s teammates. I was also communicated to him directly by his own agent.
“To be honest with you, my agent called me the day I started to criticize China and he said, ‘Look, I work for the animal, I work for the NBA. So, I’m going to be honest with you. If you say another word about China and especially Nike, you’re never going to be able to dribble that basketball in the NBA ever again. And you’re 29 years old, that is going to cost you between $40 and 50 million dollars.’
“I was like, ‘Well, this is bigger than myself.’ I hang up the phone. I just keep doing what I’m doing.”
What Kanter Freedom was doing at the time, which was so aggravating to Communists in Beijing, was primarily wearing sneakers protesting China’s persecution of Uyghur Muslims at NBA games.
Boston Celtics Enes Kanter Freedom’s sneakers on court during game vs Los Angeles Clippers at Staples Center. Equipment. Los Angeles, CA 12/8/2021 (John W. McDonough/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
And, of course, he included Nike in his protest as well.
The sneakers the Celtic’s Enes Kanter wore had a message for Nike: MADE WITH SLAVE LABOR HYPOCRITE NIKE. The Boston Celtics hosted the Washington Wizards in a regular season NBA basketball game at TD Garden in Boston on Oct. 27, 2021. (Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
However, if Kanter Freedom were looking to his American-born teammates to find a common cause with his crusade for human rights, he would be greatly disappointed. As he tells it, some of those American millionaire athletes thought America was the problem in the world.
“I’m going to tell you a crazy story. So, one day, I think it was during all the Black Lives Matter protests, right? So, I remember I walked into the locker room, and all my teammates were talking about, ‘Oh my God. America is trash. America is horrible. America is the worst country in the world.’ You know, ‘We want to move.’
“I walked in, and I was like, ‘Guys, our season is about to be over. And whenever our season is over, I’m going to buy your plane ticket. It’s first-class, so don’t worry. Let’s go to some of these countries out there. Let’s go to I ran, let’s go to China, let’s go to Russia, let’s go to North Korea or Turkey. Forget about calling it trash; you criticize the government regimes, and you and your family members will be in jail and tortured to death.”
Kanter Freedom continued, “We are literally taking our freedom for granted right now, and it’s very fragile. We can lose it in a heartbeat.”
The former Celtic also noted that—even when he criticized China—some of his teammates still at least silently supported him, as long as he did it on left-wing mainstream media. However, as soon as he started appearing on right-wing media, everything changed.
“I started to join the left-wing media, and I did it; it was amazing. Then I started to join the right-wing media, and the next day, I walked into the locker room, and I started getting these dirty looks from my teammates. And I remember asking one of my teammates, I said, ‘What happened?’ And he said, ‘Well, we watched your interview last night.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ And he said, ‘Well, because of the right-wing channel that you send it, we don’t support your message anymore.’ I was like, ‘Did you listen?’
[He said] ‘Oh, no, it was on mute.’ I was like, ‘Exactly.’
Kanter Freedom stressed that many teammates came to him privately and expressed their support for his message. However, when he asked why they “whisper” their support, they confessed that they didn’t want to be outed on a right-wing network or be known to support someone who appears on a right-wing network.
“That blows my mind,” Kanter Freedom said. “We are living in America, it’s a free country, and we are whispering in each other’s ears…unacceptable.”
