Enes accepts apology from ‘scared little rats’ of NBA

After calling the NBA “scared little rats,” Enes Kanter accepted an apology for an omission he believed was politically motivated.

The promotion in question was posted on the NBA Europe Instagram page, featuring every active NBA Turkish player except Kanter.

Kanter has been banished from Turkey and labeled a criminal terrorist because of his opposition to the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Kanter responded Monday afternoon on Twitter.

“Wow! Scared to put my name up there lol. U scared little rats Turkish #DictatorErdogan affects,” he wrote, then added in another post, “The Association is supposed to stand up for inclusion and human rights. Stop freaking scared of a #Dictator and do what is right. I hope you learned from this lesson.”

NBA Europe then issued an apology on the Instagram page, which Kanter accepted. He still seemed skeptical about it being an honest mistake.

“It’s Europe, man. It’s Europe. Anything can happen, man,” he said. “I don’t want to say anything can happen, but I accept the apology. I’ll be the bigger man. But I’m not going to lie, in the beginning I felt very disrespected.”

Milwaukee’s Ersan Ilyasova, Cleveland’s Cedi Osman and Philadelphia’s Furkan Korkmaz were the three Turkish players in the promotion. It included the caption, “Celebrating the best Turkish talent in the NBA, which player do you think has had the best season so far?”

Kanter’s omission from that list raised eyebrows. In addition to being the only active Turkish player in the NBA not listed, he’s easily having the best season of all of them while averaging 15 points and 11 rebounds for the Knicks.

“They talked to our PR guys and they said they had an apology,” Kanter said. “I said, ‘Ok.’”

Kanter is a fugitive in Turkey who faces a four-year prison sentence if he ever returns to his home country. He has been charged with insulting Erdogan, whom Kanter has called, among other things, “the Hitler of our time” for suppressing human rights. Kanter has said his games are blacked out in Turkey and companies like Nike won’t sign him for endorsements out of fear its product would be outlawed in his home country.