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Blazers players seldom get asked to come on nationally televised talk shows. But the team's newest acquisition is notable for reasons that transcend basketball.
Last night, Turkish center Enes Kanter, the former New York Knick who signed with Portland last week, appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. The segment covered several topics, including his move to "the land of the hipsters," as Noah called it, and how he learned English by watching Spongebob Squarepants and Jersey Shore.
But the crux of the conversation focused on Kanter's status as a political dissident.
Kanter, who was born in Switzerland and immigrated to the United States as a teenager, is an outspoken critic of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and acolyte of exiled Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen. His opposition to Erdogan, and support of Gulen, has gotten Kanter labeled a terrorist by the Turkish government—he was recently unable to join the Knicks for a game in London, for fear that he could be arrested or killed.
"I have a platform, and I'm trying to use my platform for those who don't have a voice," Kanter told Noah, adding, "The only thing I terrorize is the basketball rim."
Watch the full segment below.