Tuesday, 18.07.2006	posted by Jeff Taylor 10:00 pm
Category: FIBA World Championship

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KEEPING THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE

It's the biggest basketball tournament in the world, the FIBA World Championship.

Twenty-four teams will be in Japan next month to fight for gold. We'll see superstars like Luis Scola of Argentina, Tony Parker of France and Dwyane Wade of Team USA (we hope) make this a special event.

I have been thinking about Japan a lot since 2003, even before the last Olympics. It all seems very trivial right about now.

That's because of the renewed conflict in the Middle East, where Lebanon's national team players have been deeply affected. I won't get into the politics. We all know things are very, very bad.

David Hein, a fellow American who has bolstered FIBA.Com's coverage for the past year ahead of the World Championship, has his connections in the country and made some phone calls to see what was happening to Lebanon's national team players. He filed a story to fiba.com and it made for sobre reading.

David had recently interviewed Fadi El Khatib, a forward in Lebanon's team who spoke optimistically about the forthcoming tournament.

The country finished last of the 16 teams in the tournament four years ago.

Fadi expected things to be better this time.

"We feel we can run the game," he had said. "Not just play with the opponents. We can control the game now."

On Saturday, when David contacted Fadi, he wasn't talking about basketball.

And he definitely wasn't in control.

"My house is only one kilometre from the bombings yesterday (Friday)," he said. "I would like to try to drive to Dubai with my family, wife and son and put them in safety and then meet the team in Turkey. I can drive there (2,100 kilometres) in two days."

I guess all I can say to this is, well, pray for peace. And remember what some of these countries have been through to reach the tournament.