Sometimes NBA newsbreakers like Woj and Shams seem to be able to predict the future. That’s obviously not what they do, but their ability to source developments and report them as quickly as possible makes it seem that way. We see it every draft night, and we definitely see it during free agency. They seem to be able to report things as soon as a player makes a decision. This morning, though, we may have seen a bit of precognition.
Today is a big day for player options around the league, meaning it’s a big day for Woj, Shams, and the rest of that group. And Shams reporting this about Enes Kanter wasn’t much of a surprise:
New York Knicks center Enes Kanter plans to exercise his $18.6M player option today to return to the team next season, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 29, 2018
Kanter wasn’t guaranteed to bring back more than that on the open market, especially this offseason when most teams are cap-strapped, so his opting in had been predicted for some time.
Except that shortly after, Enes Kanter himself quote-tweeted Shams with a response:
God Damn shams 😂 I haven’t made any decisions yet https://t.co/8D2IoMLsbf
— Enes FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) June 29, 2018
So, taken at face value, it’s a very entertaining exchange that indicates Shams apparently jumped the gun. But there’s also a real chance that Kanter is just messing with people on Twitter, which is not unheard of for players in general, and Kanter in particular. But Shams hasn’t taken down his tweet, and the only way his report technically ends up wrong is if Kanter opts out, which would be a very expensive way for Kanter to prove Shams wrong.
Still, NBA free agency is off to a fun start already, and we haven’t even gotten to the really good parts yet!
