New York Knicks Enes Kanter
(Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)

New York Knicks center Enes Kanter has not asked to be traded, but also made clear he isn’t happy with the current climate.

If there were a Mixed Signals Olympics, New York Knicks center Enes Kanter would have a gold medal.

A report from Marc Berman of the New York Post on New Year’s Eve cited the Turkish star as being frustrated in his reserve role. This stems from a drop in minutes after coach David Fizdale started using Luke Kornet more.

However, as was reported by ESPN this morning, Kanter recently met with GM Scott Perry. Meeting with reporters after last night’s loss to the Denver Nuggets, Kanter made two things clear.

First, he doesn’t want to be traded. Second, he’s frustrated with losing:

“All this anger and frustration is coming from losing,” Kanter said. “It’s not fun to lose 12, 13, whatever in a row. It’s not fun. It’s just tough, man. But obviously I had a meeting with Scott [Monday]. We talked about — he just said, ‘You know, this is the growth. This is one of your biggest tests in your career, so just try to be a good teammate.’

It’s hard to not sympathize with Kanter’s frustration. The Knicks’ loss last night dropped them to 9-29 on the year. The team has lost eight straight and is tied with the Phoenix Suns for the second-worst record in the league.

By the same token, however, Enes Kanter surely knew this would happen from the get-go. At no point were the Knicks expected to contend this season, despite looking overall competitive. Losing is indeed frustrating, but it’s not as though Kanter was completely unprepared for it.

Hopefully, this is the end of the drama and Enes Kanter continues his solid play in a Knicks uniform. Of course, never say never to a trade.

 
Josh Benjamin has been a staff writer at ESNY since 2018. He has had opinions about everything, especially the Yankees and Knicks. He co-hosts the “Bleacher Creatures” podcast and is always looking for new pieces of sports history to uncover, usually with a Yankee Tavern chicken parm sub in hand.