Enes Kanter Named One of 50 Most Influential People in Sports Culture

[caption id="attachment_233801" align="alignnone" width="1352"] Jeff Zelevansky | Getty Images[/caption] Rosters across the NBA are filled with Kentucky Wildcats.  All-Stars create headlines while general managers seek out the services of rising stars, but Anthony Davis' Unibrow cannot impact others like Enes Kanter. The former Kentucky power forward and current New York Knick has been named one of the 50 Most Influential People in Sports Culture by Bleacher Report.  Kanter made the "BR Power 50" for speaking out against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the authoritarian who controls Kanter's home country of Turkey. Kanter has been an outspoken critic Erdogan, even when it put his life in danger.  The regime that has put more than 78,000 people in prison tried to do the same to Kanter while he traveled abroad.

Enes Kanter was in bed for just a couple hours when he was awoken by a knock on his hotel room door. "We have to leave right now," his manager, looking alarmed, said. It was May 2017 and Kanter was in Indonesia running a basketball camp for kids. But word had gotten to Kanter's manager that the country's secret service was searching for Kanter to send him back to Turkey, his native country, where the Knicks center would be forced to answer to charges of being a member of a terrorist organization.

His crime?  Insulting Turkey's authoritarian regime.

Kanter made it out of Indonesia before his passport was canceled by the Turkish government.  When their efforts to detain Kanter failed, they imprisoned his father.  Last month Dr. Mehmet Kanter was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Erdogan's authoritarian government has tried to silence every critic through brute force.  Instead of submitting, Enes Kanter has fought back, and given a voice to those who cannot speak freely in his home country. To hear more from Kanter, listen to last week's interview with Aaron Torres.   [BR Power 50] [mobile_ad]