Lebanon’s Joe Vogel and Jordan’s Rasheim Wright aren’t the only naturalized players strutting their wares in the FIBA-Asia Olympic qualifiers in Tokushima.
Former PBA import J. R. Henderson, who suited up for UCLA’s NCAA title team in 1995, was given Japanese citizenship last July 2 and became immediately eligible to play for the national squad as a naturalized cager. Henderson, 30, has no Japanese lineage and is a full-blooded American from Bakersfield, California.
Under FIBA rules, a national team is allowed to recruit one naturalized player.
Henderson is the third naturalized citizen to play for Japan in a FIBA tournament after Dan Weiss (FIBA-Asia Championships, 1999) and Eric McArthur (World Championships, 2006). Former national cager Michael Dorsey, who changed his name to Maikeru Takahashi, has dual citizenship owing to his Japanese mother.
In the 2000 PBA Second Conference, Henderson replaced Carlos Strong in the Mobiline lineup and averaged 13 points in two games before the Phone Pals were eliminated. From the PBA, Henderson took his sneakers to Japan, signing with the Aisin Seahorses. Last year, the 6-8 forward averaged 21.5 points and 11.6 rebounds for Aisin.
At UCLA, Henderson played four years, raising his scoring average from 9.5 as a freshman to 19.0 as a senior. He was the Vancouver Grizzlies second round pick in the 1998 NBA draft and scored at a 3.2 clip in 30 games for the squad in the 1998-99 season.
In Japan’s 109-66 win over the United Arab Emirates in Tokushima last Saturday, Henderson (now known as J. R. Sakuragi) compiled seven points and five rebounds in 19 minutes.
As for Korea’s US-born Daniel Sandrin of Seattle Pacific University, it’s not certain if he was naturalized or is considered a local because of Korean heritage. Sandrin, 27, played as an import in Luxembourg and Germany before joining the Korean national team.
In 2002-03, Sandrin averaged 7.7 points for Seattle Pacific as a senior. The 6-7 forward hit at a 24.2 clip for ASC Theresianum Mainz in the German regional league before transferring to Telstar Hesperange where he played only four games in the Luxembourg second division in 2004-05.
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Iran activated three players who weren’t in the team that the Philippines trounced by 10 in the recent Jones Cup. They were 6-0 Mahdi Kamrany, 7-3 Jaber Rouzbahani and Mohammad Reza Akbari Bishen. Of the three, only Kamrany played against the Philippines last Saturday and the point guard saved the game for Iran with a huge triple, clutch free throws and a perfect assist down the stretch. He wound up with 10 points in 23 minutes.
Kamrany sat out the Jones Cup because of an injury that sidelined him for four months. He hit 19 points in Iran’s 84-78 win over Jordan for the bronze medal in the Doha Asian Games last year.
Jaber and another 7-3 behemoth, Korea’s Ha Seung Jin, are the tallest players in Tokushima.
Ha, 21, was Portland’s second round pick in the 2004 NBA draft and averaged 1.5 points in two seasons for the Trail Blazers. The 305-pound Yonsei University mastodon played a single game for the Milwaukee Bucks this past season. Jaber, 21, saw action for Iran in the FIBA-Asia Champions Cup in Manila in 2005. With an eight-foot wingspan, he has tried his luck in NBA camps but turned off scouts with his lack of mobility.
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Today’s Jordan-Philippines game reunites former California State at San Bernardino varsity teammates Enver Soobzokov and Jimmy Alapag.
Soobzokov’s grandfather Abdel Karim migrated to Jordan from the former Soviet Union in 1948. But the 6-4 guard was born in the US. He has dual citizenship because of his grandfather.
Soobzokov isn’t the only Jordanian national cager not born in Jordan. Others are Fadel Anajjar (Kuwait), Wright (US), Isa Kamel and Mousa Bashir (both Israel) and Islam and Zaid Abaas (both from Nablus, a city under Palestine authority in the West Bank).
Jordan’s Portuguese coach Mario Palma called the shots for Angola in the last two Olympics.
A week before the Tokushima wars began, China’s B team whipped Jordan, 81-67, in an exhibition in Shanghai. But last Saturday, Jordan was all business in blasting China, 78-65, behind Jones Cup MVP Wright’s 31 points.
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What Cuba is to boxing, Serbia is to basketball when it comes to coaching.
In Tokushima, four national teams are piloted by Serbian head coaches – Iran with Rajko Toroman, the United Arab Emirates with Zoran Zupcevic, Lebanon with Dragan Raca and India with Aleksander Bucan.
The only American coach is Qatar’s Edward Andrist from the University of Wisconsin-Stout. He was Qatar’s coach in 2000 and returns to the bench after a seven-year absence.
Syria was supposed to bring in former Fullerton State coach John Sneed but decided to go with a local, Samer Kayaly, instead. A big surprise was leaving out BraSyrians Marcelo Correa and Eduardo Caviglia who played for Syria in the recent Manila Invitationals.
A third BraSyrian, Andre (Dede) Barbosa, was earlier stricken out because it was found out he had played for the Brazilian national squad. Barbosa’s loss probably led to the departure of the two other BraSyrians.
In Manila, there were doubts raised as to the legitimacy of the BraSyrians who claimed Syrian descent. It was considered highly improbable for three unrelated Brazilian-born pro cagers to trace their roots to Syria. Caviglia even changed his surname to Farhat to make it sound Syrian.
