With the recent successes of Iran, Jordan, and Lebanon, should FIBA create Middle East region?

That’s currently what is being proposed in our forum (discuss).

The proposal is to move four current European basketball nations, Israel, Turkey, Azerbijan, and Armenia, out from FIBA Europe and combine them with the three current Asian subregions – West Asia, the Gulf, and Middle-Asia.

FIBA Mideast would consist of the following 21 national teams: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbijan, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.

From there, Oceania and Asia would be combined so that Australia and New Zealand no longer had automatic bids to every major international tournament.

The Boomers and Tall Blacks would then have to duke it out with China, Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, and the remaining East Asian teams.

What do you think? Join the discussion: Hey FIBA, houldn’t there be a Middle East Basketball Region?

We’ve had a lot of positive traction on our forum from some under-represented regions as we’ve recently received some great members from Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, and Syria.

Great Egytian and Iranian Basketball Threads
First off, I wanted to recognize a couple great informational forum threads regarding domestic basketball leagues in Iran and Egypt. mohsena2631 and soliman have created and have updated these league threads with stats, news and other pertinent information. Check them out here: Egyptian Basketball and Iranian Basketball Super League.

Fadi El-Khatib Stronger than Yao Ming?
With only a few days left before polls close on the 2007 Interbasket Awards, we’ve had an influx of Lebanese basketball fans voicing their opinions on why Fadi El-Khatib deserves the Interbasket Asian Basketball Player of the 2007 Award over Yao Ming. Many of the votes may be nationalistic, but some true die-hards strongly believe that Fadi is the one.

What about Michael Madanly of Syria?
Also recently, Interbasket has been visited by Syrian basketball fans pushing for the inclusion of Syrian superstar Michael Madanly (misspelt several different ways on our forum mandanly, maadanly, madanley) into the 2007 Asian Player nominees. Unfortunately, we are too far late in the game to have included him. It’s nothing personal against him, just didn’t make much sense with the polls closing soon and Fadi and Yao so far ahead in voting. I hope that the Syrians stick around to nominate him in 2008 if he Madanly is still deserving.

A Question of Weighing Accomplishments
Even with Madanly having been included in our nominations for 2007 IBN Asian Basketball Player of the year, we still have the difficulty of selecting a player from a pool of players that participate in separate leagues.

It’s a question of worth — Does Yao Ming deserve the award simply because he is an all-league center, an all-star, maybe the best center on the earth playing in the toughest basketball league?

Or do we go for great domestic players that are setting precedence, as Fadi Khatib recently did dominating the Ukranian third league in his first year with Cherkaski Mavpi? How much is social change factor in when awarding player of the year?

Or do we go with players like Wang Zhizhi (China), Hamed Haddadi (Iran) or Michael Madanly (Syria)? These players may not be well-known across the continents, but accomplished much in 2007; from leading their team to domestic league championships in 2007 (Wang), leading their country to a surprising gold medal in the 2007 Asian Championships (Haddadi), to being the unquestioned best player in their country, and the leading scorer in the 2007 Dubai Cup and 2007 Asian Club Cup (Madanly).

Weighing the Diversity of Basketball
Different leagues, different competition levels, different awards, different circumstances, different social barriers; so how do does one reconcile all that to select one player? In a way, that’s the beauty of learning about international basketball – all the subtle and extreme differences.

My suggestion is to inform yourself about each player nominated and understand their circumstances. What if Yi Jianlian wins an NBA championship in 2014 and is the first Asian player to take home a NBA Finals MVP, but what if it was the same year that an 6-3 point guard from the Philippines leads his team to a unexpected silver in the Asian Championships, becomes the first Filipino drafted by the Spanish league and becomes an all-ACB performer? (I know that’s an impossible timeline for one calendar year, but I’m just using it to make a point)

o do those three accomplishments (Silver medal as an underdog, first Filipino in ACB, all-ACB) weigh more than an NBA Championship and NBA Finals MVP in your mind? It’s social change vs. important awards and though both are deserving, it would be up to you to decide which is a larger in the big picture. And the best way to do that is to inform yourself before choosing your winner.

Sources and Info: Egyptian league 07/08 – rosters (Forum Thread), Iranian Basketball Super League (Forum Thread), Iranian Basketball Player Aidin Nikkhah Bahrami dies in car accident, Iran: The rising basketball power of Asia, Fadi El-Khatib Dominates First Game in Europe (News), 2007 Interbasket Awards, 2007 IBN Asian Player of the Year (Forum Thread), Middle East Basketball Forum (Interbasket), 2007 Asian Championships Forum, 2007 Dubai Cup (Interbasket).