Share it. Offseason is so dull. I lust for some entertainment/tragedy.
Here's some highlights. There's much more, but this summarizes things fairly well.
Fenerbahce offers Enes a pro contract. Enes turns it down and told them, specifically, that he wished to maintain his amateur status so he could play college basketball.
This didn't go over well with his Turkish team and they upped the ante on the contract and was told the same thing, again, by Enes.
Enes' dad, Mehmet, is a wealthy and very smart guy and tried his best to insulate Enes from any unintentional mishaps that could be detrimental to his amateur status.
The NCAA allows players in Europe to be paid, but the payments must be for reimbursements of 'normal' travel/living expenses and education costs. So Mehmet maintained meticulous notes and accounted for every single penny of the money. So, initially, the NCAA felt Enes had maintained his amateur status (having declined a pro contract worth millions and kept records of how the money was spent.
Enter Fenerbahce and a phone call to Pete Thamel of the New York Times. In an interview the team claimed that Enes violated NCAA rules by paying for educational expenses directly rather than having the team pay the costs and be reimbursed by Enes/Mehmet. This was in fact a violation, but Mehmet insists that Fenerbahce refused to pay the costs and be reimbursed and he claimed he had no idea that this was a violation. The NCAA was fairly sensitive to an international kid that was clearly trying to do everything the right way, but fell a little short of following the absolute letter of the law.. and seemed willing to bend.
Enter Fenerbahce, again. This time Pete Thamel is told that Mehmet is lying and that Enes was paid $100,000 or more per year that was not being disclosed. Mehmet promptly turned over all of his records including the ONLY bank account that was ever provided to Fenerbahce for payments. Nothing reflecting what Fenerbahce had claimed.
The NCAA then makes a request for records to Fenerbahce and are denied access. Then the NCAA, just as in the DRose case puts the burden of proof back on Enes to prove he DIDN'T receive additional benefits (which of course you cannot do and is completely retarded).
Enes was supremely pissed throughout and got very very bitter about them and once said, "I'm not a ****ing slave."
. He already had bad image for refusing NT and now he's really hated guy in the whole country. After his tweets Okur mentioned Muhammed Ali's sentence for Kanter that "Talent makes sportman famous but character makes legend. So i really wonder how would you feel if any American player were messaging like Kanter after USA eliminated from any tournament or defeated?
