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Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter spent just two-and-a-half seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder, but he clearly seemed to enjoy his relatively brief stint in Oklahoma.
The veteran big man announced this week that he will be opening up a charter school in Oklahoma, one that will be designated mostly for under-served minority and immigrant students from fourth through 12th grade.
“Despite playing for other teams, I continue to return to Oklahoma City to host my annual basketball summer camps and to support programs that serve the OKC children,” Kanter wrote in a letter describing his efforts, via Nuria Martinez-Keel of The Oklahoman. “Through my foundation, my philanthropic activities extend to all of the cities where I have played for: Utah, Portland, New York, and Boston.”
While Kanter has not picked an exact location for the school, he plans to choose a site where “the need is high.”
Kanter initially joined the Thunder midway through the 2014-15 campaign after arriving in a trade with the Utah Jazz. He averaged 18.7 points and 11 rebounds per game in 26 games for Oklahoma City that season.
The 27-year-old then came off the bench for OKC in each of the following two years before being traded to the New York Knicks in September 2017.
Kanter, who was originally drafted by the Jazz, signed with the Celtics as a free agent this past offseason following a successful playoff run with the Portland Trail Blazers. He has made headlines for his outspoken activism against Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in recent years.
In 29 appearances with the Celtics, he is averaging 8.7 points and 8.2 rebounds over 18.1 minutes per game while shooting 56.3 percent from the floor and 66.7 percent from the free-throw line.
The Turkish center owns career averages of 11.8 points and 7.6 boards a night.
