Is the NBA in Bed With the CCP?
Enes Kanter Freedom was cut from the NBA because of its subservience to the Chinese Communist Party. At least, that’s what he’s been claiming for the past year and a half.
“Enes, I work for you, I don’t work for the NBA so I have to keep it honest with you,” Freedom’s agent told him. “If you say another word about the Chinese government, then you never going to play basketball in this league. No team will sign you.” (READ MORE: Honduras Heralds Growth of Chinese Influence in the Western Hemisphere)
Freedom’s claim has been disputed, but this month, he had his day in court, as he was invited to testify to Congress.
Targeting the Turks
Freedom joined the NBA in 2011, picked as the No. 3 draft by the Utah Jazz. After leaving the Beehive State, he played for the Oklahoma City Thunder, the New York Knicks, and the Portland Trail Blazers before joining the Boston Celtics in 2021. (READ MORE: Countering China: Japan, America, and Australia Build $95M Pacific Cable)
In 2016, Freedom began mixing basketball with politics. He started speaking out against the human rights abuses committed by the government of Turkey, which is where he was raised, and especially its president Recip Erdoğan. The latter’s arrests of citizens for political reasons has been near the top of Freedom’s list of grievances. Summarizing the effects of his activism on his family back home, he told Congress last week:
[His family] had to put a statement out publicly disowning me. The letter is still on the internet. The Turkish government didn’t believe it, and they sent police to raid my house in Turkey. They took all their electronics away because they wanted to see if I am still in contact with my family or not. They couldn’t find evidence, but they threw my dad in jail. The US put so much pressure on Turkey, and they finally let him go.
After that, they revoked my passport, tried to kidnap me in Indonesia, put my name on the Interpol list, put a bounty on my head, and in 10 years they sent 12 arrests warning for me.
Freedom credits the NBA for giving him the support necessary to protest Turkey’s abuses of its citizens’ rights, but he claims he did not receive that same support when he spoke out against the CCP.
Pumped-Up Kicks
Though the details of Freedom’s story differ across iterations, the general gist remains consistent.
Freedom came to a match against the New York Knicks sporting a pair of shoes emblazoned with the message “Free Tibet.” Before the game started, he was told to remove the shoes “immediately.” When he refused, he was warned he may “ge[t] banned.”
Freedom did not end up playing that night, though he had played every game previously. In between halves, he noticed a message from his manager: “China just banned every Celtics game on television.” When he received continued pressure from the league and the players’ union, Freedom promised to stop wearing those shoes. He showed up in a new pair at the next game, however, these ones reading, “Free Uyghurs.”
In his testimony to Congress, Freedom says that he was told he would never play in the league again if he didn’t back down. When the year ended, Freedom was traded to the Houston Rockets, who immediately let him go. He felt that the league chose the profitable Chinese market over justice for the oppressed, just as they did during the 2019 protests in Hong Kong.
It’s All Part of the Game
Freedom’s testimony to Congress was part of a larger investigation into American corporations that are connected to the human rights abuses of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s regime. Not everyone, however, sees Freedom’s release from the league as inherently connected to China.
New York Times reporter Sopan Deb pointed out that details of Freedom’s story are difficult to verify as he rarely names the specific NBA or player’s union members who have opposed his activism. (READ MORE: Basketball Is No Longer America’s Game)
Deb goes on to point out that Freedom stopped being a full-time starter years before he wore the “Free Tibet” shoes. Freedom’s original contract with the Celtics, Deb argues, was as a situational backup center. The case could be made that the Celtics executive who said trading Freedom was a “basketball-driven decision, one thousand percent” wasn’t lying.
Whether born of basketball or the bottom line, the fact that a released NBA star testified to America’s highest legislative body demonstrates the importance that China has taken in the national dialogue. America’s proper relationship with the far Eastern power will continue to be debated in the halls of Congress as concerns over Beijing’s ability to manipulate Americans continues to rise.
Halfway through earning a master’s in national security at the Institute of World Politics, Mason Stauffer is part of The American Spectator’s 2023 intern class. When he isn’t preparing for his future career in the national security sector, Mason can usually be found hiking through the National Park System or playing his trumpet.
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