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The Utah Jazz took a big risk by taking Turkish bigman Enes Kanter with the #3 pick. We've come to appreciate his dedication towards getting better. He needs to get better as he has very little basketball experience, and effectively, did not get as much run in as he would have liked (not eligible to play in the NCAA, and we had an NBA lockout where one entire Summer League was eliminated, not to mention a few months of Jazz ball). Savaş Birdal, a Turkish BBALL writer and blogger (you may know him from http://www.euro-step.net) tweeted some interesting news about our international man of slightly less mystery.
Enes Kanter ditched the Turkish National Team for this summer's Eurobasket qualifications and not returning staff's phone calls.
— Savaş Birdal (@sannti) July 21, 2012
After missing almost 2 full years of competitive basketball, he needs to use every chance he gets. Yet he's acting like Pau freaking Gasol.
— Savaş Birdal (@sannti) July 21, 2012
I don't know what's the deal with Turkish national basketball -- they have a lot of good players, but from what I remember back in the Mehmet Okur days, not all the best players even used to make the NT. Or there would be bad blood in the locker room.
I'm certain that young men under the age of 21 (which fits the bill for Kanter, who is 20 now) are capable of making both good decisions and bad decisions. Will not playing ball with the Turkish national team hurt him?
What do you think?