The Houston Rockets didn’t just cut veteran center Enes Kanter Freedom Friday, they released a “virus,” according to China’s government propaganda media, Global Times. With China’s tallest, loudest critic no longer playing in the NBA, the communist country will now resume broadcasts of Freedom’s former team, the Boston Celtics.
The Chinese streaming service Tencent blacked out all Celtics games since Freedom joined the Eastern Conference team at the start of the season. He then began an aggressive campaign demanding China end slavery and allow liberty for the many people they're oppressing. Trying to appease its evil business partners in China, the NBA asked Freedom to end his campaign against the commies last fall, but he refused.
Boston played Freedom far less than his talent warranted, then finally traded him last week prior to the league's Thursday trade deadline. The Rockets quickly unloaded him, and, for the NBA, it was a matter of presto, China problem gone. It’s likely the NBA won’t be encouraging any other team to hire him, because the NBA is more interested in pleasing the easily angered Chinese dictators. China badly wanted Freedom gone, NBA does China’s foul bidding.
The Chinese government's puppet writer at Global Times, Wang Qi, now portends to speak for American NBA fans.
"...many Celtics fans posted on basketball forum Hupu expressing their excitement as if they 'fought off the virus,'" he claimed, referring to Freedom.
Related: NBA Wants No Part of Freedom: China Critic Bounced Out Of League
Additionally, the Global Times insulted Freedom as a “below-average player” and reported, “netizens swarmed to the (basketball forum) Hupu platform, mocking the player who has been ignorant and arrogant on China's core interests and internal affairs such as those involving Xinjiang, Xizang, and Taiwan."
"He [Freedom] called out Lebron James, one of the greatest basketball players ever, last November, for not standing up to sponsor Nike and its alleged use of ‘forced labor’ in China," Wang wrote, "which proved to be fictitious and fabricated.”
A Beijing sports commentator who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Friday that Freedom "didn't focus on basketball as a player and lost his job… And Chinese fans can expect to watch Boston's games soon.”
Qi wrote that Freedom “repeatedly made false and irresponsible comments regarding China's Xinjiang in 2021. Meanwhile, he publicly declared his support for Xizang and Taiwan secessionists.”
Prior to Freedom’s release from the Rockets, the Global Times had paid little attention to him. In January, it falsely reported that Freedom was a CIA agent.