It’s starting to seem like the powers that be are keeping Enes Kanter off the court for the Boston Celtics.
The knocks on Kanter mainly involve his defensive struggles, but he is not unplayable, despite amassing 9:49 of court-time in two games so far this season. He hasn’t appeared since October 30th.
In re-signing Kanter and trading for fellow former Celtic Al Horford, Boston Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens made it clear that what he saw work first-hand is what he is arming first-year head coach Ime Udoka with.
Yet so far, Kanter has gotten limited time to be the primary bench scorer that he was back in 2019-20. Obviously, personnel change has had a lot to do with that–Robert Williams now plays starter minutes, and Al Horford and Grant Williams soak up whatever big man minutes are left–but the Cs have leaned on small-ball even in matchups against bigger recent opponents.
Against the supersized Cavs? No Kanter. Ditto for the Dallas Mavericks matchup, which featured four Mavs starters standing six-foot-six and taller.
Both of those games were losses, and we’re not going to sit here and say that the Turkish center could have turned the tide had he gotten some time on the hardwood.
But we will say that strategically, it was curious when juxtaposed with Kanter calling out the NBA’s apparel sponsor company for the labor conditions allowed by the Chinese government.
Kanter seems to have implicated that this China fiasco is limiting him:
Keep limiting me on the court,
— Enes FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) November 14, 2021
I will expose you off the court. pic.twitter.com/pnIvlbrrtL
But Udoka has refuted that claim, instead offering that the reasons for his absence are in fact basketball reasons and not any backdoor conspiring against him:
"… And I’ve talked to Enes about the reasons he’s not playing as much in some of the things we’re doing, defensively, in areas for him to improve on.”"
It’d be nice to at least see Kanter get some minutes in garbage time one of these games just to definitively prove that there is no collusion with one of the NBA’s biggest global business hubs.
Who knows? His offensive rebounding could bail out a poor shooting night for his second unit teammates and his post-work on the block could bail out the offense on occasion.
At worst, Udoka could squash this troubling dialogue with just a few inconsequential minutes of floor time.