To be honest, there is not going to be a lot of news concerning the Enes Kanter decision. Supposedly the NCAA minds are hard at work, secluded in a room in Indianapolis, and when the decision is made, we will be notified by a plume of smoke through a chimney. I think that is the process …. and yes, I realize it is eerily similar to the process for selecting a new Pope …. but when you are as high and mighty as the NCAA, you are entitled to all the dramatic proceedings as well.
As for the actual Enes decision … well its going to be a long week and a half or so of waiting. Here at the WBN, we are seeing to try to find some interesting angles to this story that may not be covered in details elsewhere. So while nerd fights were raged across the the internet yesterday, some people are also questioning the motivations of both Team Turkey and of Pete Thamel himself.
Andrew had an article last night on a former European league player who admits that being in the European leagues is akin to being “owned” and that the Turkey GM has real motivation to keep Enes away from Kentucky.
The focus has in some ways, turned onto Thamel himself. It was revealed yesterday that the Turkish GM does not speak English, so the words that Thamel quoted actually came from a translator. It’s not a huge deal in itself, but it is an example of sloppy reporting. Henry Abbott from ESPN also has a blog where he questions the motivation of why Enes Kanter is being made an example of, rather than the say, dozens of other similar cases:
"In all of that, he’s like most — perhaps all — of the players who will be drafted in a typical modern-day NBA draft lottery, no matter where they’re from. When some reporter does the hard work of getting a story like this on the record, the thing I wonder is not how did the world come to this, but rather: Who motivated this? Why are the insiders piping up about this one case, even as it remains business-as-usual for a zillion other players operating under the same rules? Kanter is supposed to play next year for the University of Kentucky, while he ages to the point of becoming NBA eligible. Maybe this media uproar will keep Kanter from becoming a Wildcat, which would shift around who’s reaping the benefits of his work. Why was Kanter ratted out to a reporter? Why did Thamel get more than the regular “no comments” as he called around? Some theories sprung purely from my imagination: Maybe somebody wants Kanter to play somewhere else where they can profit from his presence. (If he can’t go to Kentucky, where will he play instead? His old club in Turkey is one guess.) Maybe somebody wants to make John Calipari look bad. Maybe somebody wants to put a dent in the University of Kentucky’s recruiting class. Maybe it’s even more complicated than all of that. But what I’m absolutely certain of is that this is not what a lot of casual sports fans will take it to be: An isolated case of financial irregularities, exposed by a crisis of conscience of those involved. I don’t know anybody in professional basketball who thinks NCAA rules are sacred, or even helpful."
In the end, Abbott’s blog is just more speculation, although you have to give him props for going where mots of the other reporters are scared to tread. As for actual Kanter news? Don’t expect any for a while …. but hey, Kentucky has a football game against the Western Kentucky red blobs this weekend, so we will have more on that matchup later on the site.
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