{"id":1368897,"date":"2022-03-10T06:49:54","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T11:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1368897"},"modified":"2022-03-10T11:50:57","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T16:50:57","slug":"wear-whatever-you-want-brad-stevens-denies-kanter-freedoms-claim-that-celtics-asked-him-to-remove-custom-shoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wear-whatever-you-want-brad-stevens-denies-kanter-freedoms-claim-that-celtics-asked-him-to-remove-custom-shoes\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Wear Whatever You Want\u2019: Brad Stevens Denies Kanter Freedom\u2019s Claim That Celtics Asked Him To Remove Custom Shoes"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">36<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwear-whatever-you-want-brad-stevens-denies-kanter-freedoms-claim-that-celtics-asked-him-to-remove-custom-shoes%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1368897&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/03\/GettyImages-1238104486.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span>Over the past year, Enes Kanter Freedom has spent more time in the news for his public opposition to China, and to governments around the world that commit human rights abuses, than he has for his play on the basketball court.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Since the NBA trade deadline in February, Kanter Freedom has been without a team, traded from the Boston Celtics to the Houston Rockets and subsequently waived.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Kanter Freedom has hinted that his release has something to do with being outspoken on China, a notion with which Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens disagrees. Stevens said the reason for the trade was to acquire center Daniel Theis, who is a better fit defensively.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI really liked having Enes on our team \u2013 he\u2019s a good basketball player. When we decided to trade Enes, it was 1,000% a basketball decision,\u201d Stevens <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonherald.com\/2022\/03\/08\/0308-bh-s-celtsnotes\/\"><span>told<\/span><\/a><span> the Boston Herald. \u201cObviously the opportunity to bring Theis back with our defensive identity, and his mobility and the ability to play the way we wanted to as an eighth or ninth guy just made too much sense for us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cEnes is a good guy, he has a good heart,\u201d Stevens added.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>On Sunday, Kanter Freedom jumped on Twitter to call the Celtics coaching staff \u201chypocrites\u201d for wearing Ukrainian flag pins, claiming that Boston \u201cbegged\u201d him to remove his custom shoes, which called out countries around the world for their human rights abuses.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">How is it fair when I wore shoes to bring awareness about Human Rights violations around the world, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/celtics?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Celtics<\/a> begged me to remove them and threatened to ban me, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Celtics?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Celtics<\/a> now wear Ukrainian flag pins.<\/p>\n<p>Who approved this <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nbpa?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@NBPA<\/a> \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@NBA<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>Who chooses whose lives are more important? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NT8daMNB4e\">https:\/\/t.co\/NT8daMNB4e<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Enes FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EnesFreedom\/status\/1500552688139972612?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 6, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>Stevens also refuted that claim, saying that the Celtics supported Freedom\u2019s choice to wear custom shoes for games.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u200b\u200b\u201cHere\u2019s exactly what happened,\u201d Stevens <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonherald.com\/2022\/03\/08\/0308-bh-s-celtsnotes\/\">told<\/a> the Herald. \u201cI was actually at home, and when he decided to wear the sneakers, there was some concern \u2013 and I didn\u2019t even know until the end of the first quarter \u2013 that there was a potential uniform or dress code violation. I don\u2019t know what was said \u2013 I can\u2019t imagine that phrasing was said \u2013 but the question to me was what to do about Enes\u2019 shoes. I said I think that he\u2019s fine, and let me double check with the NBA to see if there\u2019s any uniform violation. Double-checked, fine, and he wore those the rest of the game and he wore whatever he wanted the rest of the year. It\u2019s interesting, because I feel really good that we truly sat here and supported him and his right to express himself and his freedom of speech, and I even told him the next day that you know I\u2019ve always done that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI talked to him the next day, and I said you know I\u2019ve always supported your right to express yourself, to speak on whatever you speak on,\u201d he continued. \u201cJust let me know in advance, so I\u2019m not checking on these things in the middle of the first quarter from my couch at home. We didn\u2019t talk about anything after that, because we weren\u2019t checking from that point forward. Wear whatever you want.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In October 2021, Kanter Freedom began using his platform to advocate for human rights around the globe by calling on the Chinese government to \u201cFree Tibet\u201d and by criticizing the communist country\u2019s \u201cbrutal rule.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>What followed was the Chinese streaming service Tencent blacking out all Celtics games on the platform, as well as removing replays of previous Celtics games. But the response from China didn\u2019t deter Kanter Freedom, as he continued to post videos and messages to his social media accounts calling out the Chinese government for their record of human rights abuses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Kanter Freedom has been particularly outspoken on the treatment of the Uyghur Muslims, calling on Chinese President Xi Jinping to \u201cstop the genocide\u201d of the Uyghur people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>Joe Morgan is the Sports Reporter for The Daily Wire. Most recently, Morgan covered the Clippers, Lakers and the NBA for Sporting News. Send your sports questions to sports@dailywire.com.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i>member<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past year, Enes Kanter Freedom has spent more time in the news for his public opposition to China, and to governments around the world that commit human rights<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1368897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1368897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1368897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1368897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1368897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}