New American and China critic Enes Kanter Freedom lost his spot in the NBA after the league’s annual game of musical chairs. According to Outkick:
The Houston Rockets are waiving Enes Kanter Freedom after acquiring the center via trade, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
As teams raced to get transactions done before the NBA’s trade deadline concluded on Thursday at 3 p.m. (ET), Boston shipped a package including Kanter Freedom to Houston in exchange for center Daniel Theis — who previously played for the Celtics from 2017 to 2020.
The trade reportedly included two other Celtics moving to the Rockets with Kanter Freedom, who played center. Bruno Hernando, another center from the Celtics, appears to remain on the Houston Rockets team while Kanter Freedom was waived. Kanter Freedom has been a vocal critic of China’s human rights abuses, unlike the league, team management, and other NBA players like LeBron James, who stay silent.
The feud between the two players came to a head last fall, with James accusing Kanter Freedom of using him to increase his own profile. Undeterred, Kanter Freedom vocally opposed holding the Winter Olympics in Beijing and defended his criticism of James staying silent and taking deals from Nike, which manufactures in suspect areas of China. He called for other athletes to boycott the Games based on the Uighyr genocide and the actions taken by the Women’s Tennis Association in cutting ties with China. “To me, principles, morals, and values are way more important than the money. And that should be for every athlete in the world,” Kanter Freedom told CNN.
The Houston Rockets have also folded to China under pressure. In 2019, former General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of the freedom protestors in Hong Kong before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) brutally silenced them. Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta quickly distanced the organization from Morey’s comments, and Morey walked back his statement. All-Star guard James Harden also publicly apologized to China after Morey’s tweet. The NBA’s response was equally subservient to the CCP, and James had the nerve to call Morey ignorant. Morey eventually resigned from the Rockets a year later.
Given that history, the Rockets seem like an odd place for the Celtics to send Kanter Freedom. It is also unsurprising the Rockets passed on a player as outspoken about the CPP as he is. And it’s clear that freedom of speech is something Kanter Freedom values about becoming an American. Recently he appeared in an ad that is part of a $1.5 million campaign for the non-partisan Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). FIRE is an active defender of free speech rights on college campuses.
The ad premiered last Wednesday on NBC during the Olympics and shared the story of the price Kanter Freedom and his family paid when he started to speak out against the government of Turkey. Turkish officials put his dad in jail, revoked Kanter Freedom’s passport, and forced his family to disown him.
“I remember the first time coming to America,” said Kanter Freedom. “One of my teammates criticized the president, and I said, ‘Dude, what are you doing? They might put you in jail.’ And he said, ‘This is America.’ And he explained to me what freedom of speech means.”
“Freedom begins with the freedom to speak,” said FIRE Vice President of Communications Nico Perrino. “Authoritarians across the globe use censorship to stay in power and conceal their abuses. We need a culture supportive of free speech to stop them. That’s why Enes’ message that change can only happen with freedom of speech is so powerful.”
Related: NBC Refuses to Run Ad Critical of Chinese Communist’s Human Rights Abuses
Kanter Freedom predicted this outcome in a recent interview with PBS:
“So, recently, whenever I have a conversation with someone from the NBA or one of my ex-teammates, they’re like, ‘Listen, this is your farewell tour. Have fun with it, enjoy it, I hope you win a championship because I don’t think you’re going to sign another contract after this year.’”
The decision to waive Kanter Freedom smacks of the NBA submitting to the very authoritarians he uses his voice to criticize. The CCP’s state media, The Global Times, celebrated Kanter Freedom’s ouster:
After senior ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski, also widely known as Woj, announced the trade through a Twitter post, netizens swarmed to the platform, mocking the player who has been ignorant and arrogant on China’s core interests and internal affairs such as those involving Xinjiang, Xizang, and Taiwan.
As a below-average player, Kanter Freedom has only averaged 11.7 minutes, 3.7 points, and 4.6 rebounds in 35 games this season. Despite a rare appearance this season, broadcasters in China have yet to resume games featuring the Celtics, making the anti-China Kanter Freedom look like a burden to the league that has hundreds of millions audience members in China.
Kanter Freedom was outspoken before he was ousted, unlike the NFL’s Colin Kaepernick. His playing time reduction happened after he started using his voice. This series of events should cement the perception that the NBA no longer embraces American values. It certainly has no intention of standing up for them, preferring to be bought. Perhaps the headquarters, staff, and teams should all relocate to China. Good riddance.
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