Lebanon seek to defend FIBA ASIA title in Tokyo

The Lebanese basketball national team will be seeking gold when they compete at the FIBA ASIA cup which will be hosted by Tokyo Sept. 14-22, having won the previous event in 2010 in Beirut. The Cedars were drawn in Group A alongside Asian Champions China, Philippines, Uzbekistan and Macau. Meanwhile the group B lineup will consist of Japan, Qatar, Iran, Chinese Taipei and India. Four teams from each group advance to the knockout stages. Only five players from the third FIBA ASIA Cup (previously known as Stankovic Cup) have remained on the Lebanese squad – Fadi al-Khatib, Rodrigue Akl, Elie Rustom, Elie Stephan and Jean Abdul-Nour – as the Lebanese team has undergone wholesale changes over the past two years with head coach Ghassan Sarkis at the helm. “We are not going only to compete, we are going to win the gold,” 32-year-old captain Khatib said. “I have always said that Lebanon can still compete with the best teams in Asia. It’s only a matter of a couple things, mainly the chemistry and I think the players know each other pretty well now,” he added. Despite Khatib’s encouraging words, Lebanon will face a tough battle to defend their title, as the other opponents have emerged as potential contenders since the end of the 2011 Asian Championship in Wuhan. The East Asian teams are posing the main threats, particularly Philippines and the hosts Japan, who have been looking to regain their first Asian glory for almost a decade. Neither team has tasted success in any major tournament since the emergence of the West Asian teams, with Lebanon among the perennial powers since 2001. China, the defending Asian champions, will be sending their second team, which is comprised of very young players, and will feature in the tournament for the first time. Iran, the 2007 and 2009 Asian champions, will look to get back on track after being toppled in the quarterfinals of the last Asian Championship. Managed by Slovenia national team coach Memi Becirovic, the Iranian team will be led by veteran scorer Samad Bahrami and shooter Hamed Afagh. Both will try to compensate for the absence of three of their best players: Hamed Haddadi, Arsalan Kazemi and Mehdi Kamrani. Qatar will also look to restore their pride after the last Asian championship scandal in which FIBA ASIA banned seven of their players for false eligibility to represent the country. Qatar who previously won the tournament in the 2004 edition, have naturalized New Orleans Hornets shooting guard Trey Johnson and will be managed by American manager Thomas Wisman, Japan’s former coach. The tournament represents the final official tuneup for teams before next year’s World Championship qualifier, and Lebanon is still pushing to qualify for the fourth time in a row. “If I want to see the positive side, we have many situations on which we can build confidence for the 2013 Asian Championship. For now, having welcomed back Khatib and couple of influential players. I think this is enough to have a good presence in Tokyo,” Lebanon’s manager Georges Kelzi said. Lebanon participated in last month’s Jones Cup international friendly tournament sans Khatib, finishing in seventh place. After a sloppy start in which they lost four consecutive games, the team developed fairly well toward the end, managing to score three wins and revive hopes of success with Sarkis’s vision, which has been vulnerable to criticism, the reasons being the exclusion of famous figures such as Rony Fahed, Omar Turk and Matt Freije.“Since the beginning, I have said that our plan is to qualify to the 2014 World Championship. Nothing changed. What we did since 2011 is to pump new blood into the team, and obviously, we can see now a couple of players who are capable of leading the team such as [Rodrigue] Akl and [Elie] Stephan,” Sarkis said. “It is true that the progress was a bit slow, a normal result compared to the obstacles we had to overcome lately, but I can see that our project will start to pay off very soon. Asked if this is the best possible lineup, he said: “We had some forced shortcomings, especially because of the injuries. We will especially miss [Ali] Kanaan, as we will have only three post players, but we will try our best to fill the gap.” “As for excluding Ahmad Ibrahim, he is definitely a player with a lot of potential, but for now he is not ready to play at this level. He still has to play professional basketball to get used to its style,” Sarkis explained. Shooting guard Ibrahim was ruled out from the squad after the Jones Cup, a move that stoked much speculation since the NCAA standout is described as one of the best talents in the country. The current squad consists of Fadi al-Khatib, Rodrigue Akl, Miguel Martinez, Karl Sarkis, Hussein al-Khatib, Elie Stephan, Jean Abdul-Nour, Nadim Souaid, Elie Rustom, Charles Tabet, Nadim Hawi and naturalized American Garnett Thompson. From DailyStar