Welcome to another edition of “Best of the (basketball) net,” i.e. how to kill another week’s worth of office time on the internet. Please enjoy the following stories — a real international mix this week — complements of BallinEurope.com.
Huge in Turkey
Israel’s Nimrod Tishman is coming to University of Florida. In another Israel basketball-related piece, the Sacramento Bee has the story of whatever happened to the professional career of Team Israel’s Amit “Soft and Chunky” Tamir. In case you were wondering.
The just-created BallinEurope.com Weirdest Post of the Week award this week goes to a story entitled “Turkish Airlines wants Hidayet Türkoğlu” over at a site called OpEdNews.com. The stream-of-consciousness work speculates that Turkish Airlines will be hiring Turkoglu as a pitchman for special Turkey-to-Toronto routes.
From here, we learn that Turkoglu’s heroes “are some advertisers and broadcasters, too”; that “The White Shadow” was extremely popular in Turkey and help foster the country’s current love for the NBA; and something about basketball’s “alternative audience.”
Beyond the fanciful prose, however, there is a question of source. Has anyone heard about Turkoglu signing with Turkish Airlines? I can’t find a damn thing, but my Turkish is pretty rusty, which is to say non-existent…
In the ‘States, “eight college men” managed to pull off a fantastic double PR coup this weekend, earning the attention of both the Chicago Daily Herald and ESPN’s Sports Guy simply by … being loyal and boisterous basketball fans. Read these guys’ stories and try not to LOL – we dare ya.
From China comes the morbidly ironic story of cheating in that country’s “Dream League,” an association of basketball teams that limits players’ height to 1.88 meters. Who needs life-threatening performance enhancers when you can just bow your shoulders and bend your neck back to gain that vital edge?
From the Bloody Grievances Department are rants by Sasha Vujacic and Hamed Haddadi posted this week.
Sasha-of-the-Lakers tells a sordid tale of what appears to be a purely political move by Team Slovenia coaches and trainers to keep Vujacic off the team. The greater problem, it seems, is that Slovenia recklessly gambled with Vujacic’ physical well-being when team doctors inadequately addressed a reported knee injury. The announcement from head coach Jure Zdovc et al that Vujacic would not be participating with Slovenia in Eurobasket 2009 always seemed to be belying something. Political machinations and abrupt cutting aside, if half of what Vujacic claims is true, well, let’s just say that an early American reaction would be to ring up some attorneys…
Finally Team Iran’s Hamed Haddadi really let the Memphis Grizzlies have it, claiming the Grizz folks don’t trust his abilities and that he’s needlessly riding the bench.
Stated Haddadi emphatically to Iranian source Mehr News: “I want to play regularly for the Grizzlies; nevertheless, I will have to change my team now since I am a star of the team but sitting on the bench.”
Finally, DeadSpin.com tells of “Alex” in the article “The Confessions of an NBA Scorekeeper.” Warning: potentially depressing material contained within.
Quote
Stated Haddadi emphatically to Iranian source Mehr News: “I want to play regularly for the Grizzlies; nevertheless, I will have to change my team now since I am a star of the team but sitting on the bench.”
/Quote
This statement has been repeatedly reported as misquoted, and is probably stemming from a disatrous automatic translation. When you see grammr like this you should double check.
I read what Haddadi meant was, in response of the question metnioning that he was an nba star, that he was more a bench star in the nba. Now this rings a lot more true, sound, and funny, doesn’t it?
Anyway this news is already so old. It has been misreported in the NBA sites, and I was expecting a better job of ballineurope, because this has happened so often before to european players.
But wait, please! Here’s the English-language story provided by Mehr News itself (the link was broken in the original post, but i’ve since correct it to use this one):
http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?pr=s&query=memphis%20&NewsID=936058
This is where i grabbed the quote from … if the news agency mistranslates their own story, there’s nothing much i can do about it because i don’t know anybody who reads Persian. I didn’t find the English grammar very outrageously incorrect; “star of the team” sounds a *little* funny but also is a common mistake for second-language speakers of English. (I taught ESL for a long time.)
I haven’t found any stories saying Haddadi was misquoted, but i’ll search for more. Could you provide me with a link to something…?
Thanks for reading and thanks especially for commenting!
Cheers,
Os.
[...] Original post: Best of the (basketball) net: Gripes ‘n’ grievances edition [...]
Hi again,
Here’s a forum post saying the same thing I say, linking to an arabic (persian ?) source
http://forums.interbasket.net/showpost.php?p=321196&postcount=3
Here’s a post using the same bad quote, but the titel is more informative “I’m a star but on the bench”
http://www.iransportspress.com/news/48/ARTICLE/9096/2009-08-25.html
Cheers,
@ Modimi: Thanks a bunch for the link! Interesting stuff…you know, i never though Haddadi was coming off as arrogant at all, just that he wanted more playing time for a team that seems so interested in putting him on the floor that they even drafted a big guy (!) at number two…
Let’s just hope Haddadi can make a name for himself in the NBA, whether it be with Memphis or anyone else — i for one was blown away with his play in the FIBA Worlds and Beijing Olympics.
Thanks for reading and thanks for the help!
Cheers,
Os.
Below find a link for Hedo singing for a Turkish GSM company.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QoXmC0pieA
Never heard of a Turkish Airlines ad though
[...] today you have to wonder if Slovenia national team coach Jure Zdovc now regrets not having Sasha Vujacic on the roster. You know, just a little [...]
[...] not this year: Slovenia has been *the* surprise of Eurobasket, beginning the tournament with the Sasha Vujcic conspiracy and the Beno Udrih injury, then proceeding to become the first Eurobasket team to six wins. The [...]
[...] as purely political and worsened by Team Slovenia medical staff incompetence on his official site: According to him, Slovenia recklessly gambled with Vujacic’ physical well-being when team doctors inadequately addressed a reported knee [...]