Enes Kanter Freedom has found himself out of the league for quite some time now. The former Celtics star was traded this past year by the Celtics to the Houston Rockets, who then subsequently waived him. Since then, Freedom hasn’t found a home in any other team in the NBA.
Enes Kanter Freedom believes that him not being in the NBA right now is intentional and that he has been blackballed from the league for speaking out. In an interview with the New York Times, Freedom noted that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at his history and try to figure out why he isn’t on any NBA roster right now. But he thinks he did the right thing by speaking out on social injustice.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize why I got little playing time and was released. But it does take people with a conscience to speak out and say it’s not right.”
Kanter developed a reputation for speaking out against NBA players’ stance on social injustice. He called out Michael Jordan and LeBron James on numerous instances over their association with China and what he perceived as their insincere stance on social justice. On top of that, he threatened to ‘expose’ Celtics head coach Ime Udoka over a lack of playing time.
But it isn’t fair to say that Kanter has been shunned only because of his vocal nature.
Over the last few years, Kanter has shown a significant decrease in his production on the court. Since his stint with the Knicks, Kanter’s numbers have declined, as his stats between his 2 stints with the Celtics and the Trail Blazers have shown. Perhaps teams in the NBA feel Freedom’s vocal and controversial nature isn’t worth the kind of production he provides to teams in the league.
