Hedo Turkoglu Says That Enes Kanter Is "Irrational" For Thinking He Could Get Killed In London By Turkish Spies
ESPN- Former NBA player Hedo Turkoglu, now a chief adviser to the president of Turkey, says comments by Enes Kanter about the country are nothing more than an ongoing “political smear campaign” by the New York Knicks center. Kanter earlier this week said he would not travel with the Knicks to London for a game against the Washington Wizards on Jan. 17 because he fears for his life because of his ongoing clash with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A Knicks team official said Kanter won’t travel because of a visa issue, but Kanter, who has been an outspoken critic of the Turkish government and Erdogan, said he did not feel safe making the trip because “there’s a chance that I can get killed out there.”
“We know that [Kanter] has not been able to travel to many countries due to visa issues since 2017,” Turkoglu said in a statement posted to Twitter on Monday. “In other words, Kanter can’t enter the UK not because of fears for life as he claims but due to passport and visa issues. This being the long-known truth, he is trying to get the limelight with irrational justifications and political remarks. Such remarks constitute another example of the political smear campaign Kanter has been conducting against Turkey as well as his efforts to attribute importance to himself by covering up the contradictions in his sports career. … It is obvious that this person’s remarks are irrational and distort the truth.”
Asked if he really believes that he could be killed if he travels to London, Kanter said, “Oh yeah, easy. They’ve got a lot of spies there. I can get killed very easy. That will be a very ugly situation.” Kanter has said he believes the Turkish government has targeted his father in the past because of the player’s critical stance against the country’s government. In 2017, Kanter’s Turkish passport was canceled and he was held at a Romanian airport upon landing in Bucharest.
Let me first make this very clear. I do not have any proof that the Turkish government has any spies in London nor that they would ever try to kill Enes Kanter if he went across the pond for what is essentially a meaningless NBA regular season game between two shitty teams. But saying that there is no reason to worry about going to London is EXACTLY what someone who wants to kill you would say, right? You don’t show your potential victim the murder weapon, have them literally pick their poison, or write an If I Did It book like OJ if you want to assassinate somebody. Even Bond villains act like everything is gucci with their rival until they are alone with Bond and he is tied up. And that “Respectfully announced to the public” ending to that tweet sent a shiver down my spine. Granted, Hedo Turkoglu being a chief adviser for the president of Turkey and potentially legitimately dangerous is something I continue to have trouble wrapping my brain around. But the burn that Kanter hit him with in February doesn’t make a lick of sense to me, which means it’s probably pretty fucked up if you understand it in its native Turkish tongue.
The bottom line is I have no problem with Kanter never leaving the United States again after Hedo’s tweet and I think Tim Donaghy should probably avoid any trips to Istanbul for the foreseeable future since Turkoglu was on that Kings team that got absolutely buttfucked in Game 6 of the 2001-02 Western Conference Finals.