Kanter Frustrated, Hints at Trade Possibility

Enes Kanter is loved by many in the NBA. He’s just overall a great guy and is one of the only players who would give it all for an organization. However, it’s hard for a player to give it his all when playing time and winning becomes an issue. Most people have heard of the term ”tanking” which is when a team purposely loses games for a draft pick or something of that nature. The problem with tanking is that professional sports teams aren’t allowed to publicly do it because of the way professional sports teams are supposed to bring in money. No one wants to watch their team lose. This right here is the problem for the fans of the New York Knicks and Enes Kanter. Kanter wants to win now but the Knicks aren’t ready for that now. With Kristaps Porzingis still recovering from an ACL injury, the Knicks just aren’t ready to make a playoff push yet. The plan for them is to develop young players and prepare for next season with a high possibility of a top 5 pick and a chance at signing big name players in free agency. Enes Kanter just doesn’t fit in with this plan unfortunately. If the Knicks are secretly tanking (which anyone that watches the games can see that they actually are because of late game coaching decisions that intentionally lose them games) then Kanter might be on his way out the door because of his winning mentality. This winning mentality would be great for most teams in the league, it just isn’t helpful for the New York Knicks and Coach David Fizdale at the moment. David Fizdale is doing an amazing job developing the young players this season but this gets in the way of Kanter’s playing time and winning as a team. Kanter has played in all 38 games this season but has only started 23 due to the development of Mitchell Robinson, the Knicks second round draft pick this year. Another huge part of Kanter’s playing time is the defensive mindset that Coach Fizdale has brought to the team. Mitchell Robinson is leading rookies in blocked shots per game with 1.8 and is an amazing defender compared to Kanter. Kanter is statistically one of the worst defending centers in the league. Out of the 61 eligible centers in the NBA, Enes Kanter ranks #60 in defensive efficiency. Kanter has finally expressed his frustrations over the last week and had a talk with GM Scott Perry and told the media that he did not directly ask for a trade. However, Kanter expressed his frustrations and said he would like to be able to compete and says ”I’m going out there to get a win every time”. This seems like the opposite of what the Knicks are planning to do this season and it may be time for both sides to move on and work out some sort of trade. Kanter also expressed how much he loves the Knicks and New York so this is a very tough situation for both sides. Hopefully they come up with a solution that can help benefit Kanter and the Knicks organization.