Credit: Nightcap Podcast; Patrick Gorski – Imagn Images
NBA center-turned conservative media provocateur Enes Kanter may have gone too far with his stunt challenging the WNBA’s gender participation policies.
After Kanter got the attention of Chicago Sky veteran Natasha Cloud during the team’s game against the Indiana Fever on Sunday evening and made a show of his ejection, Shannon Sharpe became the latest to mock Kanter for chasing his “15 minutes of fame.”
Kanter sat courtside Sunday in Chicago in a T-shirt emblazoned with the word “Woman” after recently declaring his eligibility for the WNBA Draft. During the game, he got into an argument with Cloud and was escorted out of the building by security.
Reacting to the incident on his Nightcap live show, Sharpe dismissed Kanter’s actions as “rage-baiting” and reminded the audience of Kanter’s increasing desperation for attention after falling out of the NBA.
“He’s rage-baiting,” Sharpe said, “and then he gonna run to Fox News and talk about, ‘See, this is what I’m talking about, they’re not inclusive, they want to have their cake and eat it too and yada yada yada yada.’ If you were good, you’d still be in the NBA.”
Toward the end of his NBA career, Kanter, a Turkish native, gained prominence for his criticisms of the country’s government under President Recep Erdogan. In response, Erdogan issued warrantsfor Kanter’s arrest, effectively preventing the NBA journeyman from returning home.
Kanter later added the word “Freedom” to his legal name and began speaking out about the Chinese government and the NBA’s ties to the country. Most notably, Kanter took aim at LeBron James, who routinely visits China as part of his Nike contract. James sidestepped the criticism and accused Kanter of attention-seeking. Since that time, Kanter has gone on a media tour around U.S. foreign relations and his experience in the NBA, and has said he plans to run for Congress.
Sharpe referenced Kanter’s difficult history with Turkey in his comments Sunday.
“His own home country don’t want him back,” Sharpe teased. “He was a solid role player, but then he started having these beliefs and these talking points that the league was like, ‘You’re not that good.’ In order to be talking like you’re talking, you need to be a star.”
Just as James did during the China controversy, Sharpe dismissed Kanter’s showing at the WNBA game as a publicity stunt.
“People just want their 15 minutes of fame,” Sharpe said. “Then you’re wearing the t-shirt knowing you’re gonna enrage people. I don’t get his angle, but hey, like I said his last name’s Freedom and he believes in freedom and all this other stuff. I guess we just agree to disagree, and that’s OK.”
While Kanter is, by and large, still aligned with the majority of Americans on the big picture of transgender women in sports, his behavior in recent weeks around the WNBA may not be proving the point he had hoped.
Turkish-American former basketball player and human rights activist Enes Kanter Freedom
Turkish-American former basketball player and human rights activist Enes Kanter Freedom