Utah Jazz: Days after praising OKC, Enes Kanter gets rude awakening

Former Utah Jazz center Enes Kanter, who has been oft vilified in Salt Lake City, received a rude awakening after being traded to the New York Knicks just days after praising his former OKC team.

Just this morning I posed a question regarding the Carmelo Anthony rumors – Is the Northwest Division about to get even more stacked? Both Oklahoma City and Portland were apparently becoming a part of the Melo sweepstakes and it looked as if perhaps one of them could be a potential suitor, making the NBA’s deepest division even a little bit more daunting than before.

Well, it sure didn’t take long for that question to be resolved as mere hours later, it was announced that the Oklahoma City Thunder had indeed landed Carmelo Anthony, trading away a 2018 second round pick, Doug McDermott and former Utah Jazz center Enes Kanter to complete the deal.

Kanter had dropped a hint that something like this might happen with a cryptic tweet on Friday that now seems to indicate that he knew his fate was sealed:

https://twitter.com/Enes_Kanter/status/911427993809166341

What perhaps is most ironic about this is that just days prior, in wake of Kevin Durant’s Twitter snafu in which he ragged on Thunder head coach Billy Donovan and his former teammates, Kanter took to Twitter to heap praises on the organization. Here’s what he had to say:

https://twitter.com/Enes_Kanter/status/910262663334301698

Ouch…

As Sports Illustrated put it, “Life comes at you fast.”

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that few, if any, Jazz fans feel all that bad for Kanter. Given the way he criticized the Jazz organization and his own teammates upon leaving Salt Lake City, it almost feels like karma that he’d be so coldly dealt after openly expressing his loyalty and dedication to OKC, especially to a team as dismal and an organization as misguided as the New York Knicks.

However, even as a Jazz fan with no particular fondness of Kanter, I do have to say that in some ways this is kind of sad. Fans expect loyalty out of their players, but don’t bat an eye when an organization fails to return that loyalty to their guys. That’s got to be a tough blow for anyone, even a Salt Lake City villain like Kanter, to take.

https://twitter.com/Rachel__Nichols/status/911691385329246209

Nevertheless, this was an extremely savvy move by the Thunder. It’s pretty unbelievable that they were able to pull off two incredible trades to get both Paul George and Carmelo Anthony in the same offseason, especially considering the lackluster players they gave up to do just that.

There’s no doubt that Kanter is a talented player, but his defensive deficiencies sometimes made him unplayable and he certainly isn’t anywhere as prolific as Carmelo Anthony. Meanwhile, although Melo is far from a lock-down defender himself, placing him alongside a solid rim protector in Steven Adams and an elite perimeter defender in Paul George should make him an incredible fit for the Thunder, who now look even more poised to be an elite team in the West.

For the Knicks, this is a bit of an odd move in my mind. Carmelo was clearly disgruntled and it’s pretty likely they felt a move had to be made, but this still feels like an odd decision. Fortunately, Kanter’s hefty contract has just two years left on it (with a player option in 2018-19), so they won’t be stuck with it for all that long, but it’s an odd fit next to Kristaps Porzingis and a difficult contract to absorb.

Nevertheless, in response to my question posed this morning, one thing is clear — the Northwest Division has once again gotten deeper and more star-studded. It will be interesting to see how Anthony fits in alongside Russell Westbrook and Paul George, but from a pure talent standpoint, there’s no questioning that OKC got better.

And that will make things quite interesting in both the Northwest Division and the Western Conference as a whole. The Knicks and Thunder will take on one another in their respective season openers on October 19th in Oklahoma City and that ought to be one heck of an intriguing game.

Next: Utah Jazz: Is the Northwest Division about to get even more stacked?

Given the fact that Kanter is far from a fan favorite in SLC, I have a feeling that the Utah faithful will take some amount of pleasure knowing that justice has been served and the player that once insulted everything having to do with the Jazz is now on a team that figures to be one of the worst in the league in 2017-18.