On a night when the sports media was more interested in celebrating LeBron James than drawing attention to his moral hypocrisy and failures (which is pretty much every night, but this one had historical significance), Enes Kanter Freedom did the job the media won’t do for themselves.
Moments after LeBron James passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and became the NBA’s all-time scoring leader, Kanter Freedom posted a tweet in which he recognized James’ achievement but then highlighted the many other moral areas where James is a net “0.”
Well, Kanter Freedom did list James as #1 in bowing down to China.
The former Celtic made a name for himself last year by becoming the NBA’s only active player to criticize and protest China on the basketball floor openly. Kanter Freedom donned sneakers calling for an end to China’s political oppression and human rights abuses.
In addition, Kanter Freedom wore sneakers calling for an end to Uyghur slave labor.
Kanter Freedom explained his tweet further in an interview with Fox News Wednesday morning.
Obviously, he’s one of the best players to ever play. I play the game. He just broke the record last night, I congratulate him. But (at the) same time, if you see what he stands for, you know, there are so many human rights violations that are happening around the world that also, you know, he called himself more than an athlete.
He called himself a, you know, human rights activist or freedom fighter. So I was just very disappointed in him just, you know, choosing money and business over his morals, values, principles.
He signed with a company like Nike that pretty much used slave labor, sweatshops over in China. And he talks about all the problems that happened around the world. But when it comes to one specific topic, China, he stays silence, and that is hypocrisy. So that’s why I wanted to expose it. I wanted to call them out. And I just hope that he chooses to speak out about not only the problems that happen in America, but all around the world, because you call himself more than an athlete. So people going to ask you questions about it.
Kanter Freedom remains a free agent after being released by Houston last year.