Enes Kanter Freedom has never been shy, and this week he took his sharpest swing at the biggest name in basketball. Talking to Yahoo Sports, the former NBA center said LeBron James is a symbol of the league's activist culture, and that its lecture-heavy tone traces straight to its most powerful player.

I cover the screen, not the hardwood, but I know a box-office formula when I see one, and the NBA has been running the same one Hollywood has: take the audience for granted, mount the pulpit, and act shocked when the turnstiles slow down. Freedom has been saying this for years, out loud and by name, while most of the people nodding along in private keep their heads down and their paychecks close.

His argument is simple enough. LeBron, he says, built an empire on being vocal and then used that power selectively, loud about the causes that were safe and fashionable in the building, quiet about the ones that weren't. Whether that's fair to LeBron is a fight for the sports pages. What nobody disputes is that Freedom talked when talking cost him something, and he's still talking now that he has every excuse to stop.

The delicious part is that Freedom gets louder the further he gets from the court. Most cast-off employees get quiet. He's doing interview after interview naming names, and the named parties respond with the classic non-response response, which in LeBron's case has generally been to suggest Freedom just wants attention. Maybe he does. So what? A man willing to be unpopular for his opinions is allowed to want attention for them. We used to call that being a public figure.

What struck me reading the interview was how familiar the shape of it was. It's the same plot as every studio scandal I've covered this year. An institution wraps itself in causes right up until the causes get complicated, and the true believers find out about the fine print. Every one of these companies draws its lines around revenue; the principles are set dressing. I've watched four studios this year alone discover a brand-new conscience the same week a movie opened, and discover brand-new silence the week the numbers came in.

Freedom's conclusion, that the league's most influential star set the tone for all of it, will be fought over for a week and then forgotten until the next flare-up. But the man himself deserves better than to be a talking point. I've spent a year watching famous people call a bad opening weekend a career sacrifice. Enes Kanter Freedom is what an actual stand looks like, and the fact that he's standing on the outside looking in tells you everything about who meant it and who didn't.

LeBron will keep playing, keep winning, keep doing whatever it is he does. And Freedom will keep talking from the outside. Hollywood taught me long ago that the character who tells the truth in act one usually ends up out in the cold by act three. The difference out here is that nobody's written the ending yet, and I've stopped betting against the guy with nothing left to lose.