NBA's Adam Silver Says Enes Kanter Freedom-Colin Kaepernick Comparisons Are 'Unfair'
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver denied the league is conspiring to blackball Enes Kanter Freedom as a result of his activism regarding China.
In an interview with the New York Times' Sopan Deb, Silver said any comparisons to former NFL star Colin Kaepernick were wide of the mark and added that Freedom is allowed to speak his mind.
Freedom has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese regime and the ongoing human rights abuses against the Uyghur people and other groups, which has been labeled a "genocide" by United States officials.
As part of that criticism, Freedom has set his sights on businesses, such as the NBA and Nike, which have entered into the Chinese market. He has called out Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James as well.
Ahead of the 2022 NBA trade deadline, the Boston Celtics sent Freedom to the Houston Rockets, who promptly waived him. His last appearance was in Boston's 126-91 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Feb. 8.
That has led some to argue that Freedom is the victim of retaliation for his social activism, which inevitably drew parallels to Kaepernick.
Kaepernick began protesting against police brutality and systemic racism during the national anthem in August 2016, a movement that spread across the NFL and sports as a whole. The 2016 season is also the last he spent in the league.
In February 2019, he and former San Francisco 49ers teammate Eric Reid settled a grievance against the NFL having alleged team owners colluded to keep them unsigned.
One distinction between Kaepernick and Freedom is that the former went from being a full-time starter to being totally unemployed. Kaepernick's last year with San Francisco wasn't that bad, either. He threw for 2,241 yards, 16 touchdowns and four interceptions while running for 468 yards and two touchdowns in 12 appearances.
Freedom, on the other hand, has seen his stock fall over a period of multiple years.
Going back to 2015, FiveThirtyEight's Neil Paine made the case for how the 6'10" center's reputation was a bit inflated by his basic on-court production, whereas advanced metrics suggested those numbers weren't telling the whole story.
This past offseason, the 29-year-old was coming off a season in which he averaged a double-double (11.2 points and 11.0 rebounds), yet he had to settle for a one-year, $2.7 million contract from the Celtics.
The continued employment of Daryl Morey, who's the Philadelphia 76ers' president of basketball operations, is another sign of how Kanter's current unemployment may have little to do with his activism.
One tweet from Morey in support of Hong Kong in 2019 was enough to damage the NBA's relationship with China. ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski and Bobby Marks reported in January 2020 the NBA might have lost between $150 million and $200 million from the saga.
Silver said in October 2019 he and the NBA resisted overtures from Chinese officials to fire Morey, who was the Houston Rockets' general manager at the time.
