NEW YORK _ Young basketball players who had hoped to attend a free clinic this weekend in Westbury with former Knicks center Enes Kanter won't be seeing the NBA player after a mosque postponed the event.
Kanter says the Islamic Center of Long Island caved to pressure from the Turkish Consulate in New York City. The mosque and its leaders say the Boston Celtics 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. On Thursday, a private basketball training facility in West Hempstead said it would host Kanter for the clinic.
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 comments criticizing the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey revoked Kanter's passport, and that has kept him from traveling outside of the United States in the past year.
