Subscribe
Follow Us
Damian Lillard refuted a previous text statement from former teammate Enes Kanter, who claimed he got six minutes to decide whether he'd be willing to re-sign with the Portland Trail Blazers or not.
The Turkish big man claimed to feel pressured by the front office and not given time to reach out to his family through his younger brother, who still has a means to contact them.
Lillard wasn't buying that, to say the least:
Sometimes there’s a chance you lose out on two ppl because you’re waiting on one. What I can confirm is that my boy was not given 6 mins lol… he was prob down to 6 mins from the original 45 https://t.co/vDn4cfxVHg
— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) July 1, 2019
Kanter's decision to sign a two-year, $10 million deal with the Boston Celtics came roughly an hour after the Blazers traded for big man Hassan Whiteside, trading Maurice Harkless and Meyers Leonard to the Miami Heat.
Whiteside was brought in to fill in for the injured Jusuf Nurkic, who suffered a leg fracture at the end of the season and was forced to watch his team fight out the postseason on the bench.
The 7-footer's arrival likely rendered Kanter as a backup again, and a third-stringer by the time Nurkic comes back to the court, making the Celtics the obvious option to fill in the gap left by Al Horford.
If the Celtics and Blazers were Kanter's last two options, it's likely he tried to get a bidding war going between the two, but the value just wasn't there for a points and boards guy who has yet to develop defensively.
Kanter's text statement was questionable at best, given how the Blazers were so willing to honor his request to fast through the holy month of Ramadan, even as he did so at a vital stretch of the postseason.
