Enes Kanter (of the OKC Thunder) for The Players’ Tribune:

Last week I escaped in the middle of the night from Indonesia. Then I got detained in an airport in Romania because the Turkish government canceled my passport. All on the same weekend. Maybe you saw the videos I posted.

It was my birthday on Saturday, too. I turned 25.

In one second, I was countryless. Just like that.

It was a very weird birthday.

It takes a special type of person to publicly stand up and risk everything to fight against injustice. As an NBA star, it would be easy (and tempting, I’m sure) to see all that you have to lose and just sit back and be quiet.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Enes Kanter for not taking that easy road.