New York Knicks: Analyzing being without Enes Kanter as the team heads to Europe

As the New York Knicks prepare for their trip to London, they will now be without Turkish Center, Enes Kanter. But it’s not for reasons you’d expect.

New York Knicks Center, Enes Kanter has in a pretty rough situation when it comes to his home country of Turkey.

Kanter has known to be a critic of Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for years now.

On multiple occasions, Kanter has referred to Erdoğan as “The Hitler of our century”, and because of his comments about the president, Kanter fears he could be assassinated should he travel with the team to London.

Here is some of what he had to say about the horrible situation:

"“Sadly, I’m not going because of that freaking lunatic, the Turkish president. It’s pretty sad that all the stuff affects my career and basketball, because I want to be out there and help my team win. But just because of the one lunatic guy, one maniac, one dictator, I can’t even go out there and do my job. It’s pretty sad.”via NBA.com"

It’s a sad situation and it is rather unfortunate for both Kanter and the Knicks, but what does this mean going into London for the Knicks?

Although the Knicks have been going with three forwards in the starting lineup in Kevin Knox, Mitchell Robinson and Luke Kornet, the loss of Kanter is rather significant.

Even though he is coming off the bench, Kanter is averaging 23.5 minutes per game over his last two games, and 26.5 minutes per game on the season.

Not only that, but he is the team leader in rebounds with 10.7 rebounds per game, alongside his 14.4 points and two assists.

This being said, the Knicks will be without a pretty significant piece when they take on the Wizards in London.

This means it it will be next man up and you can expect to see a lot more of Mario Hezonja and Lance Thomas than you have recently.

You will also see the Knicks go with a three-guard set as they have a plethora of guards available on the roster.

You can also expect to see a lot of small ball for the Knicks, which isn’t the end of the world against Washington.

The Wizards primary playmakers with John Wall out for the year are now Bradley Beal and Trevor Ariza.

This being said, small ball isn’t the worst thing to do against a team that shot 36 threes against the Heat on Friday night.

The loss of Kanter isn’t ideal, but for a team that has only 10 wins on the season and is looking to secure a high draft pick, it is not the end of the world in any sense of the term.

The Knicks play the Wizards in London on January 17th.