{"id":609340,"date":"2026-02-18T07:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T07:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/609340\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T07:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T07:04:14","slug":"former-nba-player-enes-kanter-freedom-calls-eileen-gu-a-traitor-for-representing-china-at-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/609340\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom calls Eileen Gu ‘a traitor’ for representing China at Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NBA player\u00a0Enes Kanter Freedom condemned the American-born Team China Olympic skier Eileen Gu<\/a> during an interview on Fox News\u2019 \u201cIngraham Angle\u201d on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just going to say it, she\u2019s a traitor,\u201d Freedom said. \u201cShe was born in America. She was raised in America, lives in America, and chooses to compete against her own country for, literally, the worst\u00a0human rights abuser\u00a0on the planet, China. She built her fame in a free country, and then chooses to represent an authoritarian regime.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gu has never spoken out publicly against\u00a0China\u2019s alleged human rights abuses<\/a>, including the nation\u2019s alleged systematic campaign of repression against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or the jailing of politician Jimmy Lai.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe chose to play for a country that is literally responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of its own people, and literally running a concentration camp while we\u2019re talking,\u201d Freedom said, comparing Gu\u2019s silence on the issue to\u00a0LeBron James\u2019 declining a question about China\u2019s alleged human rights abuses in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Former New York Knicks player Enes Kanter Freedom condemned the American-born Team China Olympic skier Eileen Gu. FOX News<\/p>\n

Eileen Gu of Team China smiles while holding her Faction skis and wearing her national flag during the women\u2019s freeski big air medal ceremony at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on Feb. 16, 2026. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a play,\u201d he said. \u201cWhenever the human rights issues are raised about China, they all stop talking about it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gu is the highest-paid\u00a0Winter Olympic athlete\u00a0in the world, making an estimated $23 million in 2025 alone amid partnerships with Chinese companies, including the Bank of China, and western companies. Gu has said she represents China for her mother, who was born there.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0reported last week that Gu and Zhu Yi, a fellow American-born figure skater who now competes for China, were paid a combined $6.6 million by the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau in 2025 for \u201cstriving for excellent results in qualifying for the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics.\u201d In all, the two were reportedly paid nearly $14 million over the past three years.<\/p>\n

Gu has been the subject of global criticism since her decision to represent China dating back to the original decision in 2019, and her first Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022. <\/p>\n

Kanter reacts to a call by the referee during the second half of the NBA basketball game against the Philadelphia 76ers, Monday, Dec. 25, 2017, in New York. AP<\/p>\n

This year, that criticism has ramped up, as she has won two silver medals and even responded to a\u00a0question about President Donald Trump\u00a0criticizing US Olympian Hunter Hess for being critical of the current state of America.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry that the headline that is eclipsing the Olympics has to be something so unrelated to the spirit of the Games. It really runs contrary to everything the Olympics should be,\u201d Gu told reporters Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole point of sport is to bring people together. \u2026 One of the very few common languages, that of the human body, that of the human spirit, the competitive spirit, the capacity to break not only records, but especially in our sport, literally the human limit. How wonderful is that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gu has never publicly addressed China\u2019s alleged human rights abuses, including its treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang or the jailing of politician Jimmy Lai. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Gu also claimed she had been \u201ccaught in the crossfire\u201d herself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who has got caught in the crossfire before, I feel sorry for\u00a0the athletes,\u201d Gu said. \u201cI hope that they can ski to their very best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vice President\u00a0JD Vance\u00a0weighed in on the controversy<\/a> surrounding Gu in a Tuesday interview on Fox News\u2019 \u201cThe Story With Martha MacCallum.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no idea what her status should be, I think that\u2019s ultimately up to the\u00a0Olympics\u00a0Committee, I won\u2019t pretend to wade into that,\u201d Vance said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI certainly think that someone who grew up in the United States of America who benefited from our education system, from the freedoms and liberties that makes this country a great place, I would hope they want to compete with the United States of America. So, I\u2019m going to\u00a0root for American athletes, I think part of that is people who identify themselves as Americans. That\u2019s who I\u2019m rooting for in this Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gu has won two silver medals in freestyle skiing in Milan Cortina, in the slopestyle and big air events. She has one final event, the halfpipe, remaining on Saturday, where she has the opportunity to add to her total.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NBA player\u00a0Enes Kanter Freedom condemned the American-born Team China Olympic skier Eileen Gu during an interview on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,1312,4883,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806,5744,66,71434,17765],"class_list":{"0":"post-609340","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-enes-kanter","11":"tag-knicks","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-knicks","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkknicks","17":"tag-olympics","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-winter-olympics","20":"tag-winter-olympics-2026"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116090363229291965","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}