How Significant Is This Handshake?
On the left is Sacramento’s Omri Casspi, the league’s first Israeli player. On the right is Hamed Haddadi, the league’s first Iranian player. In the middle? Some dude who hopefully caught the significance of what this meeting meant.
I say hope, because judging from the lack of press Monday’s meeting received, its significance has been lost on many. Few are writing about it. Possibly because the “it” is a small moment in time and often, people equate small with insignificant. Haddadi didn’t get into the game, much less face off against Casspi (they don’t play the same positions anyway). The Kings and Grizzlies are the dregs of the Western Conference and neither player is particularly noteworthy as individuals.
So the story was just as potent (or impotent, I guess) three weeks ago when they first met (the Grizz visited the Kings on November 2, no picture was taken) as it was three weeks before the season even started. There’s an Iranian and an Israeli playing in the same league. End bullet point.
But these pictures didn’t exist before Monday. And here it is. Evidence of something bigger than war. At least that’s what one could extract, no?
From Ronald Tillery at the Memphis Commercial Appeal:
Haddadi had never faced an Israeli player on the court because teams from Iran, which does not recognize the Jewish nation, are not allowed to play Israel.
Haddadi … has said none of that bothers him.
“It’s just a sport,” Haddadi said.
Maybe it is just a sport. I know little about the backgrounds of either men. Perhaps they escaped much of the hatred their country feels toward the other. Perhaps they’re removed enough from such feelings that this photo was simply an uncomfortable photo op for the two and nothing more. Nothing meaningful. And perhaps that’s why only a few outlets made note that the encounter even took place.
But it did take place. And it wouldn’t have in either one of their countries.
For everything negative that passes in and out of the NBA, nothing can negate that this handshake happened and that it may very well happen many more times over.
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Photos courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images
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