Enes Kanter’s detailed account of what pandemic life has been like

Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter opened up with a detailed discussion on what life has been like for him in the pandemic in a recent interview.

With the NBA and much of the rest of the U.S. and Canada in quarantine for roughly a month and a half now, we are for the most part getting used to it.

But for NBA players, who could be called back to action with only a short time to get back into game shape with little of the necessary equipment and facilities in which to do it, “getting used to it” can be both a blessing and a curse.

Depending on how they’ve adjusted to the new normal that is physical distancing on an ongoing basis, it could be a bit of a challenge — or an absolutely massive one.

Boston Celtics big man Enes Kanter spoke at length at what he’s been up to in the pandemic on a number of topics on “The How to Survive Without Sports” podcast with Bleacher Report’s David Gardner, and the Turkish center’s own version of “getting used to it” featured prominently.

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At first, in the early days of the pandemic, the Zurich native slacked off like many of us.

“When this thing happened, you know, I was like, Okay, I can just sit on my Xbox or Playstation [and] play six, seven times a day, you know, and it’s wasting my time.”

Soon it became clear this wasn’t a long-term option, though, and Kanter began to adapt.

“So, I was like, ‘Okay, we cannot go outside and cannot see anybody. So let me just sit here and try to educate myself,” he began.

“Because whenever I have these conversations with … people that know what they’re talking about, like CNN or FOX [news], or MSNBC, they asked me some really, really tough questions and I’m like, ‘Okay, this is my second language … you can learn more about this thing.’ So I can explain myself better, so I can explain what’s really going on in Turkey better.”

Like many of us, Kanter cannot see his family right now, but unlike almost all of us, it’s not a product of the pandemic.

For Kanter, who has long battled with authoritarian Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his human rights violations, even speaking with his family in Turkey creates problems for them.

So, the Celtic big man has channeled much of his frustration on that front into continuing to speak out about Erdoğan, sometimes at great personal cost, even appearing in articles and on television with major global media outlets.

“So … maybe we will study about foreign policy … about what’s wrong with American history, study about some of the stuff that I can sit down and want to have a conversation with people [so] I can explain myself,” Kanter continued.

“I’ve been trying to do a lot of reading,” he added. “I’ve been trying to watch a lot of documentaries. I’ve been trying to … do something that I’m trying to invest in myself, not just sit at my computer or XBox, wasting that whole six, seven hours. ”

Kanter has also been teaching himself to cook on his mother’s advice — “one day is going to come, I’m not going to be there for you,” she used to tell him — and has been trying to learn the piano on his own, with some minor hiccups.

Having giant hands is more of a boon in the NBA than to aspiring pianists, it seems.

He also spoke on making Tik-Tok videos as a pastime, revealing he did, in fact, clean the treadmill first that he used in a video showing him eating them off of it.

“It’s fun because there’s so many kids out there bored at home and not doing anything,” noted Kanter. “I’m just giving some people some ideas like hey, you can just go up and do this.”

There may be a few parents out there who wish he’d included the cleaning prelude in the video. Even so, Kanter has been one of the most visible Celtics in a time of distance between everything, which has helped maintain a fragile semblance of normalcy around us while so much is clearly not normal.

Kanter still spends plenty of downtime watching movies and cartoons like the rest of us. But, he has been participating in the team’s remote meetings and has also kept up on his conditioning as well — sometimes on his own, sometimes with voluntary group team workouts.

“We actually have the FaceTime phone conference with the team and the strength coach calling four or five of us on FaceTime, and they say ‘Okay, now 10 push ups now'”, he added, noting the training sessions were not mandatory.

He also spoke on the uneven access some players have over others for workouts, noting those who live in small apartments or houses have to make due with what is available, sometimes getting very creative in the process.

“Today, I actually saw Tacko while lifting luggage to do a curl, [and I was] like, ‘Wow, that is dedication.'”

If and when the season does resume, players with this sort of approach to the pandemic will have a short-term advantage over players and opposing teams who leaned into their newfound free time with more recreational activities.

There is little in the way of shaming going on within the organization, though.

With the team — and the world — facing an unprecedented event in living memory, head coach Brad Stevens has been quick to point out in other interviews that he doesn’t expect basketball to be close to the top of most people’s priorities.

But one good thing we can all take from how Kanter and the other Celtics have approached the pandemic’s upending of our quotidian lives is that there’s no right or wrong way to cope with such a catastrophic event.

We just have to do our best to “get used to it”, and while healthier choices will pay dividends, the biggest and most important goal is to get through the pandemic in whatever way is safe — and functional.

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