Reports: NBA’s Enes Kanter Freedom traded to the Rockets then immediately waived

NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom has been very vocal about making sure the humanitarian rights violations in China are brought to the public forefront. Freedom has used his public platform to raise awareness and bring light to the atrocities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and even changed his name to Freedom in public display. As a result, he undoubtedly is being punished.

On Thursday, Kanter was traded to the Rockets from the Boston Celtics. On Friday, ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted, “The Rockets are waiving Enes Freedom, source tells ESPN.” The Daily Caller News Foundation  writes “there is a very high chance he never plays in the league again.”

Kanter Freedom was brave enough to appear in a Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) ad for the Olympics which was promoting free speech. Freedom of speech is very important to Kanter who is originally from Turkey.

On Monday the player tweeted from his official Twitter account, @EnesFREEDOM posted this message:

“I do NOT care about politics. The only thing I care about is Human rights, Freedom and being the voice for the voiceless. The question people should ask themselves is; Despite our differences, what can we do to make this world better, TOGETHER?”

Despite Kanter’s fight for freedom and for humanitarian justice, he is getting punished. When Colin Kaepernick took a knee and began some anti-American rhetoric by some, not all, athletes in professional sports, nothing happened. In fact, they were rewarded and praised.

Kanter, however, spoke out against human rights abuses, in a communist country, and he is being punished in the United States where we stand for Freedom. But the NBA has crumbled to China.

China has a financial tie to the NBA because the league profits heavily from doing business in China. When the general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey, supported the freedom protests in Hong Kong, the owner of the Houston Rockets, the Chinese consulate and the Chinese basketball association all denounced Morey.

The NBA put out a statement calling his action “regrettable” and that it didn’t “represent the Rockets or the NBA.” After his remarks, the NBA lost roughly $200 million after China took the games off of Chinese tv as punishment. Relationships such as Nike and LeBron James makes the player roughly $30 million richer each year.