What does freedom mean to you?

It’s one of those words we use all the time, but I think it can be easy to forget just how precious it is when you’ve never known what it feels like to live without it. My guest this week, Enes Kanter Freedom, has—and I walked away from our conversation thinking about freedom, courage, and what it really means to stand by your convictions in a completely different way.

Most people know Enes from his incredible career in the NBA. But his story is so much bigger than basketball.

Enes was raised in Turkey and came to America as a teenager. He told me about growing up surrounded by messages about who he was supposed to hate—including Americans—and about the lesson his mother taught him as a boy that would ultimately shape so much of the man he became: Don’t hate anyone before you meet them.

Then he came to America and did exactly that. He met the people he had been warned about. He experienced this country for himself. And years later, when he became an American citizen, he chose to add “Freedom” to his name because he understood in such a deeply personal way what those freedoms actually mean.

But what I admire most about Enes is that his gratitude for freedom has never been passive. He has been willing to use his voice to defend it, even when doing so came with enormous personal consequences. Today, that same willingness to speak out has brought him into the fight to protect fairness and opportunity for women and girls in sports.

As a mother of daughters—and as someone who has spent years fighting to protect women’s opportunities—this part of our conversation hit home for me. Enes could easily stay out of this fight. Instead, he has chosen to step directly into it because he believes women deserve a fair playing field, privacy, safety, and the opportunity to compete.

And yes, we laughed—a lot. If you know Enes, you know it would be impossible not to. But underneath all that humor is something incredibly serious: a man who knows what freedom costs and refuses to take it for granted.

That may be what stayed with me most after this conversation. Freedom doesn’t sustain itself. It depends on ordinary people being willing to use their voices, stand by their convictions, and tell the truth—even when there is a price for doing it.

I hope you’ll join us for this very special conversation about America, family, courage, women, and the freedom worth fighting for.

Thank you for watching!
OXO,
Stacey