Young basketball players who hoped to attend a free basketball clinic this weekend in Westbury with former New York Knicks center Enes Kanter won’t be seeing the NBA player after a mosque postponed the event.
Ask Kanter what happened, and he says the Islamic Center of Long Island caved in to pressure from the Turkish Consulate in New York City. Ask the mosque and they say the Boston Celtic center’s appearance was becoming too wrapped up in politics and controversy, when the event was supposed to be just about kids, basketball and fun.
Kanter, who is Muslim, has been in a long and very public feud with the government of his home country of Turkey, and was tried in absentia for his critical comments of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdou011fan.