Enes Kanter Defends OKC After Kevin Durant's Criticism of Thunder
Kevin Durant did a pretty weird thing on Sunday night. There's really no other way to put it.
Here's what happened. Some guy tweeted "man I respect the hell outta you but give me one legitimate reason for leaving okc other than getting a championship." Durant felt the need to respond to that tweet with a pretty aggressive and pointed message from his official @KDTrey5 account: "he didn't like the organization or playing for Billy Donovan. His roster wasn't that good, it was just him and russ." He followed up with another tweet that said "imagine taking russ off that team, see how bad they were. Kd can't win a championship with those cats."
Durant probably meant to send those tweets from a dummy account that he uses to answer questions (why he feels the need to answer these questions is another story), but he owned up to the mistake on Tuesday at TechCrunch Disrupt, calling his actions "idiotic."
Durant's comments are sure to ruffle some feathers across the league—it's a pretty bad look to say you didn't like playing for an organization or for a specific coach. Imagine being a player on the Thunder not named Russell Westbrook; Durant basically just said you aren't good that good and that he couldn't win a championship with you.
One of those players is Enes Kanter, whom the Thunder acquired before the 2015-16 season to take some of the scoring load off Durant and Westbrook's shoulders (obviously the move did not satisfy Durant). Kanter appeared to respond to Durant's tweets on Tuesday by firing off his own message, but Kanter's expressed nothing but love for the Thunder.
Kanter went on record shortly afterward, discussing Durant and saying his apology “helps, but [is] too late.”
“Well, I’m not angry. It’s just really sad,” Kanter said. “I remember when he was here – I played with him one-and-a-half years – and when he was here, this organization and these fans, this whole state, gave him everything he asked for, everything he wanted. The cooks, the chefs, the massage therapists, the coaches, players – everything – just (to make) sure he is okay and getting what he wanted to get.”
Kanter particularly has reason to love OKC and the state of Oklahoma in general. Because of his association with controversial Turkish figure Fethullah Gulen, a vocal opponent of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Kanter has been stripped of citizenship in his native Turkey. Because of complications with his passport, Kanter was held in an airport in Romania in March. The NBA came to his immediate defense, as did Oklahoma senators Jim Inhofe and James Lankford, and he returned to the United States shortly after his detainment.
All this goes to say, Oklahoma has embraced Kanter as one of its own, just as it did Durant. Durant has comprehensively scorched that bridge, while Kanter's outspoken support for the organization will further endear him further to Thunder fans.
