Enes Kanter Freedom
FREE AGENT

Player Facts

Height: 6'10"
Weight: 250lbs.

Wingspan: 7'1.5"

Date of Birth: May 20, 1992
College Experience: N/A

Selections

All Star: 0
All-NBA: 0
All-Defensive: 0

Player Grades

Speed/Explosiveness: 3
Physical Strength: 9
Positional Size: 8
Positional Wingspan: 9
Paint Scoring: 9
Midrange Scoring: 2
Three-Point Scoring: 1
Dribbling: 3
Passing: 3
Perimeter Defense: 2
Interior Defense: 3
Rebounding: 10

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JUMP TO SECTION

> Intro

> Offensive Rebounding Brilliance

> Converting O-REBS to Points

> Rolling Down

> Dunker Spot Target

> Running the Floor + Posting

> D-Rebounding + Post Defense

> Major Defensive Challenges

> Offensive Limitations

> Beacon Bacon

>Link to Player Contract & Salary Info

*All short clips courtesy of NF Highlights, Smart Highlights & Z.Highlights (YouTube)

*All statistical data courtesy of NBA Advanced Stats

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STRENGTHS

Intro

The 6'10" center prides himself on being an exceptional rebounder. Enes is particularly prolific on the offensive glass. This productive board-getting keeps him on the floor in spite of some other holes in his game.

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Offensive Rebounding Brilliance

The journeyman center is a double-double machine so long as the minutes are at least in the 20's. If you were to up them to the 30's he can notch a 20-rebound game for you. He's got multiple seasons in the top-six for the highest total rebounding percentage under his belt.

Freedom works hard to get the space down low. He routinely wins the battle on the glass against one or even two foreign bodies. A plus-wingspan at 7'1.5" helps out as well given that he's a hair undersized. Drawing fouls is another positive thing that comes out of Enes' grappling matches.

The Turkish pivot simply outmuscles and outworks people down low. He knows offensive rebounding is his greatest strength, and his high-energy style sustains him here.

In both 2018-2019 and 2019-2020, he grabbed the second most offensive boards per-36 respectively. He posted the best mark leaguewide in 2020-2021 and had another strong one in 2021-2022.

Converting O-REBS to Points

Enes proceeds to do a good job of converting these snags into points for his offense. He smartly kicks it out for a reset but can quickly go back up with soft touch too. Kanter Freedom flips in hooks over either shoulder for a lot of his garbage buckets.

He had the most putback points in the Association for the 2020-2021 regular season. Back in 2019-2020, his 69 baskets this way was more plentiful than what Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Domantas Sabonis, and Anthony Davis provided. Plus, all of those guys played far more minutes than Enes.

Going right back up with force also earns Enes trips to the line. This explains his formidable free throw rate considering how little offense is run through him. He makes teams pay with a solid mid-to-high 70% clip at the stripe.

Rolling Down

The second main wrinkle to Enes' offense is rolling down the gut of the defense. His screen-setting in and of itself is a value-add with his 250-pound frame. He's freed up his smaller guards like Kemba Walker, Damian Lillard, and CJ McCollum many times with on and off-ball picks over the years.

Enes offered up more screen assists per-36 minutes than Jonas Valanciunas, Andre Drummond, and Deandre Ayton (2019-2020). As it pertains to his own scoring, Freedom rolls hard and finishes his bunnies well. He was in the 57th percentile scoring as the screen-setter here in 2019-2020.

Dunker Spot Target

Kanter Freedom pads out his value by being a secure target for drop-offs and by running the floor hard.

He shows his hands well and exhibits patience in conjunction with crafty up-fakes around the basket. Enes looks to get his body into defenders to knock them back, knowing that he himself is not much of a high-flyer.

In 2019-2020 he finished 65% of his shots from within 5 feet of the rim. His wings that year like Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Gordon Hayward knew that they had a reliable pressure release in the form of Enes in the dunker spot. For context, both Joel Embiid and Jarrett Allen were also right around 65% that season.

Running the Floor + Posting

Kanter Freedom chugs down the floor when the possession changes hands. He has good hands to catch darts in traffic before going up for the finish.

Enes also uses these opportunities for deep seals and then quick turn-and-fires (80th percentile for overall post scoring in 2019-2020). In general, he displays good footwork with on his post touches. He likes the exaggerated up-fake before going up to finish on the other side of the rim.

D-Rebounding + Post Defense

Save for the odd swat, Enes' main area of real defensive value is on the boards. While a better offensive rebounder, he's no slouch on the opposite end. He employs that same rough-and-tumble style to pull 7-10 defensive boards per-36 in a given season.

He can contribute a bit with his post defense. Enes has recorded some serviceable seasons guarding post-ups with that big body. He was in the 77th percentile defending these in 2019-2020.

WEAKNESSES

Major Defensive Challenges

Enes really has a rough go of it on the defensive end. Poor lateral quicks, suboptimal foot speed and generally moving stiffly render him a clear negative on this end. This has kept him from being on the floor in crucial moments of games.

On the interior, he can be a sieve. He tends to try hard enough but can get caught out of positioning or lack to foresight to slide himself into appropriate help positioning. This level of flimsy paint defense and lack of rim protection is extremely detrimental to a player who can only play the five.

The ground-bound center is also vulnerable to springy roll men or just dribble-drivers in general. When players can go at him two-on-one in downhill attacks, he's susceptible to bigs getting behind him for the lob. Once even a pocket pass is made to the dive-man Enes is too slow to recover and contest.

Kanter Freedom's defense continues to be porous on switches. He gets matchup-hunted very often as a player who is not all that difficult to blow-by for NBA guards. Opponents will also thrust him into steady pick-and-roll action to make him move his feet and expose his lack of spryness.

Enes spent well over half of his 2019-2020 minutes defending non-centers. Since switching, hedging, and coming to the level of the screen as a big are all such common concepts in the modern NBA, Enes is ill-suited to defend in this vein. He was in just the 7th percentile defending one-on-one sequences that season as a Boston Celtic.

Offensive Limitations

Kanter Freedom's offensive woes are sizeable but aren't quite as much of a deal-breaker. He gets by as a dive man, high motor rim runner, and awesome offensive rebounder. The rough patches must still be noted though.

Enes is not a very skilled passer even at his position. He's also played behind bigs that could consistently dime up cutters/make short roll swings like Jusuf Nurkic and Steven Adams. However, he seems to have not picked up too much from these guys, posting dead even-to-negative AST/TO ratios in multiple years.

Jump shooting is absolutely not a part of his offensive repertoire. The furthest he'll shoot from is about 10 feet out for a push shot. Enes has no pop ability and not much off-ball value on offense besides the jockeying for positioning under the rim.

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Enes was selected third overall by Utah in 2011, right behind Kyrie Irving and Derrick Williams