Enes Freedom Bails on CPAC to ‘Figure Out This NBA Stuff First’

NBA center Enes Kanter Freedom has bailed on this month’s Conservative Political Action Conference just days after accepting an invitation to speak, citing the need to concentrate on his professional basketball career. “I need to figure out this NBA stuff first,” he told Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel on Tuesday. “So I won’t be going to CPAC now.” Shortly after his CPAC appearance was announced, the Boston Celtics traded Freedom to the Houston Rockets in a deadline day deal, only for the Rockets to waive the struggling 29-year-old big man to open up a roster spot. (This is standard practice in multi-player NBA trades involving expiring contracts.) Conservatives, however, smelled a league-wide conspiracy afoot, claiming Freedom’s increasing right-wing media attention, criticism of China, and his CPAC participation were to blame for his release. Freedom himself helped stoke that speculation by retweeting a number of prominent conservatives who suggested he’d been “canceled” by the league.