REPORT: Enes Kanter will opt in to the final year of his contract, return to the Knicks

So much for waiting until the “last minute, last day, last second.”

Yahoo!’s Shams Chanaria has reported that Enes Kanter will opt in to the final year of his contract with the Knicks, worth $18.6 million:

Kanter technically has until midnight tonight to come to that decision, and although he still hasn’t made his sure-to-be-lame social media announcement yet, it seems that the big Turk is here to stay, at least for one more season. Enes would have you believe that nothing has been decided, though:

Also, Kanter’s flying somewhere?

And last night he tweeted a picture of a deer and deleted it:

This is all very confusing. (But, chances are, noted Twitter troll Enes Kanter probably wants it that way.)

There’s a possibility that Kanter received interest from the Milwaukee Bucks, and the Knicks worked out some sort of deal to send him there (similar to Chris Paul’s decision to opt in to his contract with the Clippers last year and be traded to the Rockets).

On the other hand, Kanter, like many of the Knicks, seems intrigued by new head coach David Fizdale, giving him exactly 18,600,001 reasons to stay in the Big Apple next year:

“With Coach Fizdale, I want to stay more,’’ Kanter told The Post in a phone interview Monday night. “I know his mentality, I know how much freedom he gives to his players. It’s going to help my decision for sure. I think he’s going to change a lot of things. He seems like a relationship with him is like a friendship relationship. It’s not a player-coach relationship. I talked to him for two hours and it gives you so much confidence.’’

Kanter opting in and staying in New York likely means that free agent center Kyle O’Quinn is gone-zo, as the Knicks will probably want to try to free up some play time for rookie Mitchell Robinson to develop behind Kanter.

So, welcome back, Enes (if you’re actually staying, which you probably are)! Here’s some summer homework: