The key to Enes Kanter’s free-agent heart is a simple phone call

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The key to Enes Kanter’s free-agent heart is a simple phone call




By KRISTIAN WINFIELD
| NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
JUL 16, 2019 | 2:38 PM
 


Enes Kanter remembers it like it was yesterday. There Damian Lillard was, sizing up eventual Defensive Player of the Year runner-up Paul George 40 feet from the rim. He swayed back and forth, crossed between the legs, then side-stepped, before launching what George called “a bad shot” — a 37-foot buzzer-beating game-winner — before waving the Thunder goodbye in the first round of the playoffs.

How could it be a bad shot, Kanter said, if Lillard practiced it?


“When I first signed with Portland, it was my second or third practice, and I saw Dame working on that shot,” Kanter told The Daily News at the Five-Star/NBPA summer youth basketball camp in New York City. "I’m like, ‘What is this guy doing?’ Just shooting from 40 feet out. But he was making them, and I just thought it was weird. Then the playoffs started, and he actually started to make his shots in-game.

“So when he took that shot, we had confidence in him because he actually works on that shot. Only Trae Young, Dame and Stephen Curry can really take that shot. The rest of the league, no way.”

When this step-dad realized his step-son had a girl over and was trying to sneak her out past his mom, he live-tweeted the hilarious situation.


Enes Kanter puts on a brave face, but he was frustrated being stuck on the bench with the Knicks before escaping to Portland. (David Zalubowski/AP)


Kanter, of course, lived that moment after successfully negotiating a contract buyout with New York in February. He understood Knicks brass wanted to play their young guys, but he admits he was frustrated.


“I even told them, I understand you guys are trying to play the young guys, but I am not old,” Kanter said.

After all, he was just 26 and in the prime of his career, playing on a team that wasn’t trying to win games. Kanter became a free agent in February, and he says he had offers from both the Lakers and the Trail Blazers.

“Dame texted me. I thought that was special so I decided to go to Portland, and it worked out well,” he said. “The Lakers didn’t even make the playoffs.”


The same thing happened this summer, after Kanter became a free agent after filling in for the injured Jusuf Nurkic in Portland. The Turkish big man averaged 11 points and 10 rebounds in the playoffs for a Trail Blazers team that made it to the Western Conference Finals. Kanter says he had several offers on the table, including more lucrative offers than what he signed for. But he decided the most important thing to him was finding an organization with “a winning culture and good, young players on the roster.”

One thing sealed the deal: A message from an All-Star guard.

“One of the reasons I picked Boston was because of Kemba Walker,” he said. “He called me during free agency on Danny Ainge’s phone. He said, ‘Hey, how we doing, big man?’ That was special to me.”

The Celtics are putting the pieces back together on the fly. They lost both Kyrie Irving and Al Horford in free agency, and they still have three starting caliber wings — Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Gordon Hayward — for only two starting wing positions. Boston also lost Marcus Morris, who signed a one-year, $15 million deal with the Knicks.

One thing the Celtics are getting in Kanter that they may not have expected: a nutritionist. Yes, he goes hard on his cheat days, like pile-driving a family-sized platter of burgers, pizza, sushi and hot dogs. But Kanter does this because his diet is pristine for the majority of the year.

“I think about my body like a car. You have to put the best fuel in,” he said. “You can have cheat days and stuff, and I do it a lot, but I generally eat very clean.”

The Celtics will need Kanter in tip-top shape if they’re going to make up for their net-losses in free agency. Good thing for them: He’s going to try to get the rest of the team in shape, too.

“When I was in New York, I was actually kind of the nutritionist of the team,” he laughed. “I was sending everybody diets, like what to eat in the morning, lunch, dinner and everything. Diet is very important, especially early in the season because if you want to play 82 games, you’ve gotta put the right fuel in the body.”



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