Iran Basketball

[Amonkey]

Please note: this is not meant to be a big political topic so leave the straight out politics to the side.

I was checking out ESPN the other day and saw that Iranian National team is playing the Rocky Mountain summer league in preparation for the Olympics.  My first thought was, thats pretty random.  Thats cool though and I like the fact that basketball is allowing us to put the politics aside and get along.  This is a country that we know so little about and I am proud of Stern, the Iranian basketball organization, and for USA to be so open mind and allow this to happen.  I think its a step on the right direction.

A couple of interesting things about this team: their coach is Serb, so thats gotta be pretty random.  Forget about american, can u imagine being a eastern european and with communist background being in a muslim world.    Also, their center is 7'5".  Finally, here;s a good article about the team.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-oly-iransreturn&prov=ap&type=lgns

[LA_Celtic]

Iran is not a big Basketball country, everything revovles around Soccer(Football). But it was nice to see the team training here in the US. I know other Iraninan teams like Waterpolo and track come here to train and American Westling and Fencing team also goes to Iran for training and comptition.

[Cooldude5t5]

This is a cool story. I'm glad that the two countries put aside their political differences and focused on the game. I have a question about if Iran played Israel. I'm not sure if Israel is in Fiba Asia or Fiba Europe. If Iran does not recognize Israel as a country then what happens if they play them. Would the politics be put aside or would Iran refuse to play because the country in their eyes does not exist?

[LA_Celtic]

I think Israeli teams are competing in europe because alot of Asian teams including Iran were not playing them. I'm sure if it was up to the players they would play but the goverment would not allow that.

[cordobes]

I'm not sure about this. I think there's a double standard. I remember everybody supported South Africa banning from sports international competitions during the apartheid, for example. Can't see much of a reason to no apply the same principle to Iran: it may not be an ethnic apartheid, but there is a religious and sexual apartheid, besides their regime being way more beligerant towards their neighbours than South Africa's ever was.

As a basketball team, they completely suck. And Serbian coaches are all over the world (besides USA, of course), though I had never heard of their coach before.

Recently, I've seen a very interesting documentary on an Iranian national sports team, Football Undercover: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160008/

Israel play in FIBA Europe (Israel plays under Europeans confederations in all sports). But it's not unusual to see matches between Israel and arab countries. With Iran it's more rare, but of course they would play if they met in an international competition. But that's not going to happen in the Olympics Basketball Tournament, Israel didn't qualify.

Here's a famous match between Iran and Israel, the Asian Cup final in 1968:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuB4GCZ0MCM

[guava_wrench]

I'm not sure about this. I think there's a double standard. I remember everybody supported South Africa banning from sports international competitions during the apartheid, for example. Can't see much of a reason to no apply the same principle to Iran: it may not be an ethnic apartheid, but there is a religious and sexual apartheid, besides their regime being way more beligerant towards their neighbours than South Africa's ever was.

As a basketball team, they completely suck. And Serbian coaches are all over the world (besides USA, of course), though I had never heard of their coach before.

Recently, I've seen a very interesting documentary on an Iranian national sports team, Football Undercover: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160008/

Israel play in FIBA Europe (Israel plays under Europeans confederations in all sports). But it's not unusual to see matches between Israel and arab countries. With Iran it's more rare, but of course they would play if they met in an international competition. But that's not going to happen in the Olympics Basketball Tournament, Israel didn't qualify.

Here's a famous match between Iran and Israel, the Asian Cup final in 1968:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuB4GCZ0MCM

It's a lot harder to ban countries that trample on human rights for religious reasons. And what country is in the position to even suggest that? We have out own problems with fundamentalism and our own policies that cause outrage among the international community.

Let's just let them play. The athletes aren't the oppressors. It is ridiculous to punish them for policies of their government that we don't like.

Increasing the us vs. them mentality by isolating their athletes won't help change the public sentiment in their country for them to return to a more secular democracy.

[cordobes]

I'm not sure about this. I think there's a double standard. I remember everybody supported South Africa banning from sports international competitions during the apartheid, for example. Can't see much of a reason to no apply the same principle to Iran: it may not be an ethnic apartheid, but there is a religious and sexual apartheid, besides their regime being way more beligerant towards their neighbours than South Africa's ever was.

As a basketball team, they completely suck. And Serbian coaches are all over the world (besides USA, of course), though I had never heard of their coach before.

Recently, I've seen a very interesting documentary on an Iranian national sports team, Football Undercover: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160008/

Israel play in FIBA Europe (Israel plays under Europeans confederations in all sports). But it's not unusual to see matches between Israel and arab countries. With Iran it's more rare, but of course they would play if they met in an international competition. But that's not going to happen in the Olympics Basketball Tournament, Israel didn't qualify.

Here's a famous match between Iran and Israel, the Asian Cup final in 1968:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuB4GCZ0MCM

It's a lot harder to ban countries that trample on human rights for religious reasons. And what country is in the position to even suggest that? We have out own problems with fundamentalism and our own policies that cause outrage among the international community.

Let's just let them play. The athletes aren't the oppressors. It is ridiculous to punish them for policies of their government that we don't like.

Increasing the us vs. them mentality by isolating their athletes won't help change the public sentiment in their country for them to return to a more secular democracy.

The same rationale should have been applied to South Africa, then. Or to the Olympics in the 80s. Were the athletes the oppressors? There are no religious reasons. There are a lot of countries that share the same religion that don't have totalitarian regimes.

The problem is that totalitarian regimes are very good using sports based propaganda to pursuit their criminal ends. For example, Leni Riefenstahl's films about the 1936 Olympics.

Any country with a more or less perfect constitutional regime, that guarantees basic liberties to the citizens, is in position to suggest that, IMO.

[LA_Celtic]

Cordobes,
I'm from a religious minority that is Oppressed in Iran(Bahai). Whatever that worked in the case of south Africa does not neccessariy work with Iran. The leadership in South Africa actually cared about the international prestige whereas the Iranina leadership does not. I know for a fact that people in Iran are very interested in realations with US and this kind of exchanges can have a positive effect on facilitating that possibility.

[Change]

Its funny, at times i want to choke David Stern for all his blunders in the past few years. For this I congratulate the NBA and David Stern for looking beyond politics and enjoy the game of basketball. Yes we can all coexist and live in harmony and that's what sports offers. The games are probably televised in Iran, I wish they were also televised here in the States. I'm really excited about this years Olympics, would've been even sweeter if "A" Celtic was there.

[Amonkey]

I agree with those saying to set the politics aside and just let them play.  Who cares in what way, spin and turn their government use the sport, its better for the athletes and the sport to let them play the game we all love.

Thats why I thought it was so incredibly stupid for people and leaders to suggest countries boycotting the Olympics.  I understand protesting (peaceful protesting, some places got rediculous) but to not compete goes completely against what the Olympics stands for.  For the very few times in our world can the whole entire world place their politics and display national pride and world unity by competing for the same goals.  I think thats beautiful.

[kozlodoev]

A couple of interesting things about this team: their coach is Serb, so thats gotta be pretty random.

Not random at all. Former Yugoslavia has one of the strongest basketball schools in Europe. Asian countries often hire eastern European coaches in all sports, because they're skilled and willing to go to the Middle East to work for what is pretty good money.