Amid all the grumping about the NBA’s unprecedented restart inside the Orlando bubble, Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens implored his players to embrace the eperience and said the Disney restart could be one of the defining moments of his players’ basketball careers.
“Like Coach Brad said, this will be the story that you tell your grandkids,” Enes Kanter said on this week’s “The Enes Kanter Show” on the NBC Sports Boston podcast network. "This is definitely the craziest, most weirdest season ever. This year is the story to tell your grandkids. So let’s tell them a good story. Let’s tell them, ‘Hey, we came here, we did what we were supposed to do, we went out there, and the Celtics won a championship.’”
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Kanter said the Celtics are making a concerted effort to focus on the positives.
“I remember thinking, ‘This [hotel] room is so small, how am I going to live here for three months?' Then I’m like, you know what, there’s so many people out there their situation is way worse than me, so just have fun with it. See the big picture,” said Kanter.
The big picture is just win a championship. When you win a championship, it doesn’t matter what hotel you are staying or what you were eating, or what kind of snacks you had, you’re going to forget about all those things and just remember that moment.
Kanter said Stevens’ speech helped players embrace the unprecedented experience. In media accesses from the bubble, Boston players have routinely said how they are trying to avoid complaining about minor inconveniences and making the most of the experience.
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“After his career, [Stevens] should be a motivational speaker,” said Kanter. “After his basketball coaching career because, whenever he talks, people just like forget about everything else.”
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Kanter said players are still trying to figure out what to do with all their downtime on the Orlando campus. Earlier this week, he joined Tacko Fall on a bike ride and plans to introduce the 7-foot-5 rookie big man to beach volleyball soon.
"We need Rob [Williams] against Tacko,” quipped Kanter. "That would be a really good [volleyball] matchup.”
With reports that some players have been forced to quarantine after inadvertently straying from campus (including the Kings’ Richaun Holmes hunting for a food delivery pickup), Kanter said he’s been careful to follow all the bubble rules. But who on the Celtics would be most likely to accidentally stray from the bubble?
“I would probably say (rookie) Vincent (Poirier),” Kanter said with a laugh. “He would say, ‘Oh, I didn’t understand, it’s my second language.’ I would probably say Vincent."
Listen to the latest “The Enes Kanter Show” on your favorite podcasting app, or watch the show on YouTube.