Enes Kanter Calls Out NBA Silence on China: Companies Are ‘Scared Because They Care Too Much About Money’

Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter unloaded on the government of China once again on Wednesday. Last month he called President Xi Jinping a “brutal dictator” called for a “free Tibet,” which prompted the Chinese government to ban Celtics games from airing in the country.

“NBA made me do this,” Kanter told CNN’s Christine Amanpour on Wednesday. “Because every time when one of the NBA teams or the commissioner came out [to] speak, they say we are encouraging our players to talk about whatever they want to talk about. We are giving the freedom to our players to talk about all the injustices happening around the world, all the human rights abuses around the world. So, they gave me this right. They told me to do this, basically.”

Kanter said he met with NBA commissioner Adam Silver and asked him, “Am I breaking any rules?”

“He said, ‘No, you’re not breaking any rules.'”

The Celtics big man said Silver told him the NBA backs him. “‘We are supporting you against China,'” Kanter quoted – or at least paraphrased – Silver as saying.

But Kanter expressed doubts.

“I don’t know how much that is true,” he said. “If they were really supporting me, they would’ve put something out there. They would’ve put out some kind of statement.” He called the banning of the Celtics from China’s airwaves “unacceptable.”

“People think I do politics. I don’t do politics. I do human rights,” said Kanter before accusing the NBA of being “scared” of China.

“They care too much about money,” he said. “They care too much about business and they care too much about endorsement deals.”

Watch above via CNN International.