Getty Enes Kanter of the Celtics, battles in the post against Philadelphia's Joel Embiid.
In one fell tweet, Celtics center Enes Kanter managed to take shots at some of his biggest antagonists, real and perceived, after Boston completed a sweep against the Sixers on Sunday in the first round of the NBA playoffs.
Kanter knocked his opponent on the floor—that would be Philly in this case—while also hitting subtly at Sixers reserve Furkan Korkmaz, a fellow native of Turkey, and the Turkish leader, Recep Tayipp Erdogan, a dictator against whom Kanter has been outspoken. Erdogan has banned Kanter’s NBA games from being shown in Turkey.
The Sixers, Kanter wrote, should count themselves lucky because, “at least Turkey didn’t/couldn’t watch them getting destroyed and swept.”
Well!
@sixers should feel lucky cause at least Turkey didn’t/couldn’t watch them getting destroyed and swept
by the @celtics 🤷🏻♂️
Y’all can thank #DictatorErdogan 🤣
The Celtics were the first team to advance to the second round of the postseason, and in the long history of the Sixers-Celtics rivalry, this marks the first sweep. In fact, in NBA history, no team has completed a four-game sweep faster than the Celtics, a record that makes sense in the context of the neutral-site playoff games being played in the Orlando bubble during the league’s restart.
Kanter was Key in Containing Sixers’ Embiid
Kanter did not have an enormous impact on the series and scored 6 points with 5 rebounds and 4 fouls in 16 minutes on Sunday. He had been averaging 5.3 points and 6.3 rebounds in the first three games of the series, occasionally giving the Celtics good minutes—particularly in the Game 2 blowout win—against center Joel Embiid.
While Kanter has had modest numbers, it is clear that his strength and experience helped slow down and wear out Embiid. Kanter was a plus-10 while on the floor on Sunday and for the series, has a net of plus-34 in four games.
Kanter is no defensive stalwart. But Embiid had faced Kanter nine times before this game, getting significant minutes against him. That experience was useful.
“Obviously Embiid is a hell of a player,” Kanter said this week, according to Masslive.com. “I have a lot of respect for him. I say this every time, this guy missed the first three or four seasons, and he came back and he’s one of the best big men in the league now. I think guarding Embiid is not just me, it’s everybody. The whole team is doing an amazing job, obviously trying to stop him and I think we just need to do our jobs and try to be physical with him.”
Kanter’s Battle With Turkey’s Erdogan Ongoing
But for Kanter, the long-running battle against Erdogan remains the most significant one. For years, Kanter has been speaking out about Erdogan’s human-rights abuses, especially because of his adherence to the concepts of Fetullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric who has been living in Pennsylvania for more than two decades. Erdogan has tried to pin a 2016 coup attempt on Gulen.
Kanter’s outspokenness has cost people close to him back in Turkey, including putting Kanter’s own father. Erdogan’s government put him on trial by calling him a member of a terrorist group. Kanter’s father is a university professor.
In 2018, Kanter wrote an op-ed for Time magazine in which he said:
It has been too dangerous for me to set foot in Turkey for three years. The last time I visited, the government destroyed my brothers’ school and threw my dentist and his wife in prison. The regime arrested and charged a man for links to Gulen after I took a picture with his child, and went after a comedian after he exchanged a few tweets with me. Last year, Erdogan canceled my passport and put out an international warrant for my arrest. That means I am now stateless and pretty much can’t leave the United States.
Kanter has been critical in the past of other Turkish players who have shunned him. He explained on the Bill Simmons Podcast that being alienated from them is hurtful.
“What hurts me the most is other Turkish players in the league,” Kanter said. “We have Ersan Ilyasova, we have Cedi Osman in Cleveland, we have Furkan Korkmaz in Philly. Whenever we go against (them) they don’t say a word. I actually try to talk to them. I’m like, ‘Hey dude, what’s up, how are you doing?’ No answer.”
In the short-term, at least, Kanter remains comfortably in Florida, in the NBA’s coronavirus bubble. The Celtics will next take up their second-round foe in more than a week, giving Kanter that much more of an opportunity to speak out about injustice at home.
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