Digital Social Hour
Enes Kanter: They Put a $500,000 BOUNTY on My Head, For Speaking the Truth | DSH #1565
12 Oct 2025
Chapter 1: What motivated Enes Kanter to fight for freedom?
As a Muslim, I support my Palestinian brothers and sisters, but at the same time, there are houses, innocent people are being killed on Israel's side as well. People get mad all the time, and I'm like, you know what?
Chapter 2: How did Enes Kanter's upbringing in Turkey shape his views?
I care about the human rights aspect of it. People behind the table are the ones that are giving the orders, but the innocent people on the streets are the ones that get hurt. Those kids on both sides, those civilians, mothers, fathers, they have nothing to do with this war, but they're the ones that get hurt. It breaks my heart, man. We got to do something to start building bridges, not walls.
Yeah. Okay, guys, got Enes Kanter Freedom out here in Las Vegas. Glad I can make this happen, man.
Chapter 3: What consequences did Enes face for speaking out against the Turkish government?
I know you've been going through a lot, so thanks for coming on. No, thank you for having me, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, you've had quite the last few years, huh? Yeah, it was a very difficult one. A very lonely road, I will say for sure.
Chapter 4: What was the impact of the China controversy on Enes Kanter's career?
But I'm just trying to fight through it, man. Yeah.
Chapter 5: How do athletes influence political discourse today?
Any regrets looking back or are you proud of where you are?
Chapter 6: What personal sacrifices did Enes Kanter make for his activism?
I'm actually proud of it because the thing is like my whole life, anything that I've ever talked about was not politics. It was pure human rights. I think that's the one message that is above politics.
Chapter 7: How does censorship affect athletes and their families?
And I really wanted everyone to support it, everyone to care about it. So, I mean, it cost me a lot. It cost me, you know, my career, millions of tens of millions of dollars, and most importantly, my family. Wow. But, I mean, I think what I'm doing is bigger than that. And I'm sure you're going to say like, well, what's bigger than your family?
I think to be the voice of innocent people, to be the voice of all those innocent people who don't have a voice, I think it definitely matters to me more than anything. Yeah, well, respect, man, because not a lot of professional athletes will speak out. And I can understand why.
It's important because the athletes are pretty much like, especially these days with all the social media and apps and whatever, I think athletes are pretty much like the educators, like teachers of our society. Millions of kids out there watching you and idolizing you. So I feel like we got to just put the right things out there. Absolutely.
I want to take it back to childhood because you grew up in Turkey, right? I did. And you saw a lot growing up. So, you know, growing up in Turkey, Middle East, I would say it was a very difficult childhood because if you're a politician in Turkey and if you want to be elected again, you do a couple of things.
You attack America, you attack Christian people, you attack the West and you attack people. So, and the base is so uneducated. They're like, wow, look at our leader. He's standing tall against America, tall against Christians, tall against people, lots of world for him. So that was the case when I was growing up. I was nine years old. I went downstairs to play with my friends.
And I remember like my friends that were not even teenagers, they were burning American flags and they were breaking crosses. And I'm like, I asked one of my best friend, I'm like, dude, what are you doing? Well, he said, we should hate America. We should hate the Christians. We should hate the West. They're evil. He gave me a flag to burn it. He gave me a flag.
He gave me a lighter and he said, burn it. I look down. I'm like, this is not a right thing to do. I threw the flag down. I ran upstairs to my mom. I'm like, mom, my friends are telling me to hate America, hate the West, hate Christian people. What do I do? My mom said, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but do not hate anyone before you meet them. So that day I give a big promise to my mom.
I was like, mom, I promise I'm not going to hate anyone before I meet them. Wow. So growing up, the environment, I mean, This doesn't happen in Turkey, but many countries in Middle East, in schools, front of classes, you have an American flag. And if you don't step on this flag, you're not allowed to attend the class. Holy crap. And also, when I say this, people actually get very shocked.
But it's all over the internet. Wow, I didn't know that. And if you don't step on those flags, you're really not allowed to attend the class. And you will get bullied the rest of the school year. Wow. So growing up in Turkey was very difficult. When I was 17 years old, my dad was like, enough is enough. You're going to America to get your education and play basketball.
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Chapter 8: What message does Enes Kanter hope to convey through his book?
And I'm like, I'm like, dude, like you're going to, you're literally going through like a really tough season. You have injuries, you have all that stuff. Like, wouldn't you want to go to like a vacation with your family and spend time with your kids and all that stuff? He's like, no, no, no, no, no. I got to make money first. Right.
And then boom, as soon as the season over, they were going to China. And I was confused. I was like, I was always trying to understand why. But then once like, you know, my whole thing happened with China, I'm like, well, there it is. So was China basically covering their flights and their hotel and everything and giving them money for sponsorship deals? Like how did it work?
I mean, like think about this, billions of people in China and actually the most, I think like NBA is the one, maybe the most watched sports in China. So think about like, Like the shoe deals, jersey sales, and all the kind of endorsements that they could get from China. I got a question. India obviously have more people, right? Or like another country, I don't know, Indonesia.
You don't see any player going to Indonesia and post it all over their Twitter or India, right? Why China? It's all about money and business for them. And I'm like, people, people, go to India. Then go to, I don't know, go somewhere, go Indonesia, go somewhere. In other countries, their population is over 5, 6, whatever, a million. But no, it's all about the money.
I mean, I don't want to say I kind of understand it because I think China is definitely committing the biggest genocide in our history. in our time that we're seeing right now. We're talking about like two, three million Uyghurs are in concentration camp. We're talking about Tibetans, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese people.
It's so funny because when I started to talk about all these problems that are happening back in China, Many of my teammates walk up to me in the locker room and they're like, listen, man, have fun. This is your last year. Holy crap. I'm never going to play basketball ever again on this court. Your own teammates? My own teammates.
And they're like, just pray that we win a championship because this is it for you. Wow. And I asked him, like, I thought we cared about free speech. You know what I mean? Like, this is, I'm not talking about politics. This is pure human rights. I mean, February came, trade deadline, Boston traded me to Houston Rockets. And then they literally released me in like a less than a few minutes. Wow.
I mean, our last game was against Brooklyn Nets. And after that game, when I was playing for Boston Celtics, I remember every player was hugging me in a locker room. I'm talking about every player. It was like a goodbye. And I even got emotional. I'm like, dude, I can still come and hang out with you guys. I can still come to your games and we can still chill and stuff, right?
They're like, just watch what is about to happen. Like literally the next day, tread deadline happened 10 minutes before the game. So 10 minutes before the tread deadline, I got traded and they released me. I was like, well, now I know what they're talking about. That's crazy because you were still averaging some significant numbers at the time too.
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