453: Enes Kanter Freedom—In the Name of Freedom

The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe

Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 39.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2025

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

NBA player turned human rights activist Enes Kanter Freedom shares his remarkable journey growing up in Turkey under an oppressive regime, his rise to NBA stardom, and the high personal cost of speaking out against tyranny. From being exiled by his home country to being effectively blackballed from the NBA, Enes opens up about the courage it takes to stand alone—and why he refuses to stay silent. He also discusses his powerful new book, In the Name of Freedom, and what it means to fight for something bigger than the game.

Shout out to our great sponsors

American-Giant.com/MIKE Use code MIKE to get 20% off your order.

PureTalk.com/Rowe Save 50% off your first month!

KnobelSpirits.com Spend $100, get bitters-infused sugar cubes FREE. Just add to cart & use code CARL.

PrizePicks.com/mike Use code MIKE to get $50 in lineups after placing your first $5 lineup.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, it's the way I heard it.
0:05.0	Sorry, I'm a bit...
0:08.0	Wow, you really came out hot and then just flopped.
0:11.0	Well, you know, because this is a weird one.
0:15.0	I'm Mike, that's Chuck, by the way, if you're new to the show.
0:19.0	In the name of freedom is the name of this episode. My guest is
0:22.9	Ennis Freedom. I'm stumbling all over the place because I've already interviewed him. And to be
0:28.8	honest, I already talked to him about a lot of the things that we talk about in this conversation.
0:33.8	Right. But I don't think there's been a more consequential guest on this show, maybe ever.
0:40.0	And I was struck the first time, but only struck in the way you can be struck when you're
0:45.4	interviewing somebody over Zoom or Riverside or whatever that was.
0:49.3	Yeah.
0:50.3	It's different when a seven foot tall man is right before you and is telling you the story of his life
0:57.0	and how he gave up tens of millions of dollars to be a civil rights activist.
1:03.5	The story of his young life.
1:05.4	Yes, right.
1:06.3	He was not an old man at all.
1:07.8	No, if you don't know it it the short version is this guy lived the
1:11.4	american dream he came over from turkey as a teenager very tall hell of a basketball player
1:16.9	played most notably uh for the utah jazz and the boston celtics but a bunch of others in
1:22.7	between the trailblazers and so forth it's a center center. It was very good. Great. Really.
1:29.3	Then he started mouth it off. With his shoes. Yeah. Yeah. He was concerned about what was happening
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.