American Basketball Players Find Stardom in Egypt
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) _ Egypt is no stranger to U.S. aid, receiving more than a billion dollars every year from the American government. But recently the country went looking for help for the first time from a much less formal source of U.S. foreign assistance: gifted American basketball players.
Danny Johnson, a six-foot three-inch point guard who once played for the New York Knicks, did not disappoint. The 32-year-old player, one of four Americans playing in Egypt for the first time, led his Cairo-based Gezira club to the league championship in June with the kind of skill that Egyptian basketball officials hope will boost the level of play and the popularity of the sport in this soccer-crazed country.
Egypt's basketball league was founded in 1938. But the sport has failed to gain much of a following beyond a cadre of several hundred loyal fans, and the performance of the national team has been lackluster in recent years.
The team's last international competition was the 1994 FIBA World Championship, where the Egyptians finished 14th out of 16 teams. Egypt hasn't qualified for the Olympics in basketball since 1988, a stark contrast to American dominance at the recent Beijing Olympics, where the U.S. basketball team routed the competition to bring home the gold medal.
NBA stars like Lebron James and Kobe Bryant, who led the U.S. team in Beijing, won't be playing in Egypt anytime soon. But Mohamed Ahmed Ali, the president of the Egyptian Basketball Federation, hopes second-tier American players like Johnson who joined the league in December will drive their Egyptian counterparts to improve in time to qualify for the 2012 Olympics in London.
"When we raise the level of the Egyptian players' competition, it will raise the level of competition for the national team," said Ali.
Six-foot 10-inch Derrick Franklin knows exactly how to elevate the level of play in Egypt with one of his monster dunks. The 27-year-old from Los Angeles came to the Alexandria-based Ittihad club after playing for teams in Japan and Hungary.
Many American basketball players like Franklin who fail to make it to the NBA, or who have short-lived careers in the league like Johnson, head overseas to play for teams that offer less pay and prestige but provide them a way to make a living doing what they love. The American players in Egypt can make $3,000-$7,000 each month during the seven-month season, not including bonuses, according to Ali, the federation president.
Many other countries in the Middle East, such as Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, already have Americans playing in their leagues. Fewer countries in Africa, where Egypt competes to qualify for the Olympics, have leagues with American players. But two of the three African teams that qualified for the Beijing Olympics, Angola and Cape Verde, sport American talent at home.
Egyptian teams were slow to recruit American players because they lacked the necessary funds, said Ali. That changed at the end of 2007 when the clubs were able to raise enough money from sponsors to target the more expensive American players. (Continue)
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