The world's finest basketball is played in the US. Are we paying attention? Khaled El-Farra finds out Michael Jordan wheeled away in delight after notching his 22nd point of the final game against the hapless Croats, but any question marks over whether the US basketball team would grab gold at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona had been answered long before then. The original Dream Team, a star-studded lineup from the National Basketball Association (NBA), the US basketball league which showcases the world's best hoopers, had resoundingly thrashed all those before them -- and what's more, the whole world got to see them do it. One of those afforded the luxury of catching their first glimpse of the NBA's finest exports was the then 12- year-old Mohamed Selim. Like many Egyptians, Selim's love affair with basketball was ignited by the Dream Team's exploits that summer. "At the time (1992) the only way for someone to watch the NBA was if they were really rich and subscribed to satellite channels," Selim told Al-Ahram Weekly. "Sometimes I had to go to my friend's house and tape the games to watch later at home. But the Olympics came on TV for free, which meant everyone could watch Jordan and (Magic) Johnson. Seeing those great players gave me the motivation to pursue my own basketball dreams," Selim said. Selim, 24, is now captain of the Heliopolis club's basketball team and said that watching NBA played a pivotal role in elevating his all-round game to an essentially higher level. "NBA is the best education for any Egyptian aspiring to play basketball professionally. It is a clean game that is played beautifully by real professional players. But the truth is that not a lot of Egyptians follow the NBA," he said. Sami El-Sharoni, coach of Egypt's basketball team up until last year, agrees. "Make no mistake, basketball is only third in popularity amongst Egyptians, behind handball and of course football. You cannot compare the level of interest in football to any other sport in Egypt," El-Sharoni said. "My players all watch the NBA because it is the ideal (way of playing). Also [entertainment-wise] it is good because there is no zone defence in the NBA." But El-Sharoni was pessimistic about the NBA's chances of attracting the same kind of attention football gets. "Egypt needs NBA stars to promote the game here, but even that might not be enough," said El-Sharoni, who now coaches the Police basketball team, added. Selim pointed to the NBA promotion campaign whereby some NBA games are staged in far-fetched places of the world such as Japan, and he thinks games should also be staged in Egypt to bridge the geographical gap between East and West. Apart from importing NBA into Egypt, El-Sharoni believes a better solution may lie in doing the opposite -- exporting Egyptians into NBA. Many Ajax Amsterdam football jerseys were seen on the streets of Cairo following Ahmed "Mido" Hossam's transfer to the Dutch team, and the sight of Egyptians in Lakers and Chicago Bulls shirts could soon be the norm if an Egyptian can take the NBA by storm. Alaa Abdel-Nabi is the only Egyptian to ever play in NBA (for the Philadelphia 76ers and the Sacramento Kings in the 1990s) "but he wasn't a special talent," El-Sharoni said. "I coached a couple of players who I feel can make it to NBA. One of them, Ahmed Mounir, is very special and plays for Sporting club. If he makes it to the NBA it will be like when Mido went abroad." But achieving that is easier said than done, according to El- Sharoni. "Making it to the NBA is too difficult for Egyptian players right now because the education system is poor at the moment. For example, Angola has a better basketball team than us because their players all play abroad. We don't have a system in place to send Egyptians abroad (to play in foreign leagues). Sending players abroad is essential because the atmosphere in Cairo is bad. The schools give too much work, which means youngsters have no free time to practice, and 16- year-olds need up to five hours practice each day if they want to reach their potential. Also in Yugoslavia I saw children playing basketball on the streets, but in (the streets of) Cairo you never see such things," he said. The education process that El-Sharoni speaks of was taken a step when two US college basketball players toured Egypt at the tail end of last January to conduct basketball clinics. But that would not be nearly enough is if NBA is to someday rank alongside football in terms of popularity in Egypt. In 1997-1998 Adidas launched a basketball initiative called "Streetball Challenge", a tournament in which teams of three were pitted against each other on the streets of Egypt. However, that tournament was a short-lived affair, leaving sports clubs as the only viable basketball venue for many Egyptians. But according to Selim, even sports clubs are no longer "basketball friendly" because football lovers swamp the basketball courts and use them to host football matches. However, for Hind Farouq, the Nasr City sports club allows her two daughters, Mariam, nine, and Mena, seven, ample opportunity to live out their NBA dreams. "It all began when we subscribed to ART (satellite channel). My husband loves NBA, and soon the kids began watching it with their father. So when I took them to the sports club, they chose to join the basketball team instead of judo or swimming. They want to copy the things they see the players doing on TV," Farouq said. Some Egyptians follow the NBA's Muslim contingent. That is certainly true for basketball fan Ahmed El-Sherbini who I accompanied to a half empty Abdel-Rahman Fawzi stadium to watch his favourite basketball team Zamalek. El-Sherbini was attracted to the NBA after watching Nigerian-born Hakeem Olajuwon in the gold medal-winning Dream Team of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and Sherif Abdel-Rahim in the gold medal-winning Dream Team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. "It filled me with great pride to see Muslims doing so well in the NBA because since (the boxer) Mohamed Ali, there hasn't been a huge Muslim impact on sports in the US. I like to see sports stars with personality and who stand up for what they believe in. I remember seeing Mahmoud Abdel-Raouf (an NBA player) when he refused to stand up for the US national anthem before a game. It is true that there are many high profile Muslims in football like Zinedine Zidane (of Real Madrid) but they are too politically correct and boring," El-Sherbini said. At the outdoor basketball court at the American University in Cairo were half a dozen Egyptians shooting hoops. They were dressed in the "appropriate" attire of ankle length shorts, head/ wrist bands, and vest-like tops. Their appearance meant they wouldn't look out of place on the streets of Detroit, and is perhaps a testament to the far-reaching power of the US media. One of them, Mohamed Reda, believes basketball "is life", specifically NBA basketball. He confessed to being enchanted by its glitzy nature. "In Egypt basketball is just a game, but the NBA is so much more than just a game. There are 30 teams battling for the championship and billions of dollars, which spices everything up. The coverage of the games makes you feel like you are actually there on the court or seated in the stadium. You can hear the fans swearing at the players and see the reaction on their faces. When you see Ron Artest (Indiana Pacers) beating up a fan in the crowd, getting suspended for the season, losing $5 million and then starting (a career in) rapping, it makes you excited because you don't know what to expect anymore," said Reda. "In the NBA you could be losing by 20 points with one quarter to go and win it. That never happens in any other basketball league," El-Sherbini said. However, football fan Danial Mahroos wonders what all the fuss is about. "Basketball is a lame sport, it's very predictable and I could count the number of ways you could score a basket on one hand. The first time I saw a slam dunk I was excited, but now it happens so much that it became boring. I like sports where it is difficult to score points or goals. In football you appreciate the beauty of a goal because it is a rare moment in the game, but in basketball it happens every minute and it takes the value away. Plus all those timeouts annoy me because they ruin the flow of the game," said Mahroos. "I also don't like how all these players are moving between clubs so many times during the season. Some contracts last 10 days. That is just mad." Islam Abdel-Hadi, who returned to Egypt after working for two years in England, says the NBA cannot be described as the "world's game" and pointed to the Dream Team's humiliating exit in the Athens Olympics, where they lost to Puerto Rico, a country the US virtually owns. "Basketball reminds me of rugby or cricket in the sense that only some countries play it seriously," Abdel-Hadi said. "US sport is too cut-off from the rest of the world because the winners of the NFL Super Bowl are called 'world champions' but they didn't even play against other countries. I think it's great the US lost in Athens because they think they rule the world. I felt that the Dream Team was very arrogant to go to the Olympics with a weak team and it shows that the NBA doesn't care about its global fanbase," . "I like rap, I like basketball, I like hip hop," Marwa Agoor, a Canadian Egyptian, said. "For me it's not just about the game, but it's about all that ghetto culture that goes with it. It's an African American sport, and I like the way they talk and their music and how they deal with hardships to make the big time." Schools reopened at the start of February after the winter holiday, and it appeared as though many children spent the holiday playing computer games. When quizzed about whether they had ever heard of NBA, children at Al-Waha School answered by making reference to the NBA computer game. Apparently the children knew the names of NBA players despite never having watched a real NBA match before. As a keen NBA fan and basketball player since the age of 10, Sherine El-Kilani fell in love with the NBA while in the US. Now back in Egypt, she follows the NBA on the ESPN satellite channel. "Each sport has their followers," El-Kilani said. "NBA is followed by mainly upper class Egyptians because it is expensive to subscribe to (satellite) channels. I don't think the NBA has a real fan base in Egypt because I've never seen any NBA basketball magazines in shops or newsstands, but I know that a lot of my friends follow it." Ahmed Hassan, marketing consultant at ART, said that customers pay as little as LE20 per month for the NBA TV channel but that "very few" ART subscribers actually purchase NBA TV. Selim said he downloads NBA matches online from the official NBA website (nba.com), which is a pay-per view service. In addition, the free American-sponsored Al-Hurra satellite channel screens NBA games once a week to promote it in the Arab world. ShowTime subscribers can watch the next best thing -- US college basketball. For the time being, however, it appears as though Egypt has room for only one national love affair -- and it's not basketball. The likes of football giants Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus will not be making way for the Knicks, Lakers and Celtics anytime soon.
