Roy Samaha out of the National team?
Whomever said that Lebanese basketball died after President Choueiri,(R.I.P) stopped sponsoring teams was not wrong at all!
The Lebanese Basketball Federation is a complete joke and has proudly proven so throughout the years. I just saw their selection for the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey and Roy Samaha was excluded from the squad. He also barely played in the Stankovic cup which Lebanon kind of struggled to win despite the absence of any major team.
I am not sure what this new coach is thinking, but the teams we are facing in Turkey require big guys and he somehow managed to exclude the biggest guy on the team!
Now one might argue that he hasn’t been showing his best game lately, though he averaged almost 10 points and 10 rebounds in the 2009 season, but to be replaced by Ghaleb Rida and Ali Kanaan is quite outrageous. Rida is almost retired and Kanaan is everything but a center!
Funnily enough, Lebanese scouts are busy looking for old retired Lebanese players outside Lebanon (Matt Frangieh for example) or foreign retired players to naturalize (Jackson Froman) instead of recruiting new Lebanese talents. The last real team we had goes back to Elie Mechantaf’s days. Now all we got are a bunch of individuals trying to show off, on top of them Fadi el Khatib who knows nothing about team work.
Let’s just hope we don’t get humiliated too much in Turkey and this stupid-ass coach they got is fired soon enough.
Here’s the schedule for the 2010 FIBA championship.
Matt Fraijeh is 28 years old, while Jackson Vroman is 29, and both of them have shown to be crucial elements in our National team. Fraijeh have shown a bit of greediness on the court while Vroman has truly been an unbelievable asset, he can play in any position you put him in..
Ali Kanaan is 24 and has played in the Canadian league, and has good experience and knowledge of the opponent, he has shown it in the Stankovic cup..
Daniel Faris is 23 years old and a great player comming off the bench to replace Vroman.
I think the right decisions have been made, at least for this tournament..
Keane,
Freiji is almost 29 and has failed to stay in the NBA. Ali Kanaan plays really bad, and barely averaged 2 points a game. He is as old as Roy with much less experience and talent. Why replace him?
Vroman is the only good decision they made, but he is not consistent and very tempered. Once against big guys, he ll be in a foul trouble in no time.
You have only 1 decent center for this tournament. How is that a right decision?
Najib , Roy’s issue is that he is overweight and cannot move anymore . I remember in 99 and 2000 roy was fit and could dunk over anyone in the league , he was a beast . But instead of taking care of his fitness he is slow now and can barely move and is as fat as SHAQ but 20cm shorter. As i know he is your friend You should give him some advice and tell him to start a diet so he can get back to his old form and be great again .
Toufic,
Overweight? Loool ..
Roy averaged 10 points and 10 rebounds last season with Hekmeh and can still dunk as much as anyone else. This is not the issue here. He suffered a major injury two years ago as well but he’s just fine.
This is not about him being a friend or not. I already said not taking him is one thing but replacing him with those bunch of losers is another.
We don’t have any center that is as big as Roy. It’s unfortunate but its the truth.
Anyway khaleena nchouf the “fit” players in the team chou ra7 ya3emlo.
That’s too much of a rant for a player with an average impact on the team.
It is inappropriate to badmouth other players because one guy got cut.
Joe,
He doesn’t have just an average impact and no one is badmouthing anyone out of the blue.
Najib,
Roy is a backup center with the national team, number 9 @ best in rotation (Ali Mahmoud, Jean Abdel Nour, Elie Rustom and Ali Kanaan ahead).
I would say that his impact is average.
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roy is a good player in the league and i also think he should have been selcted to play in world champship. BUT i also agree that he should a get in shape. anthor thing i want to point out is looking outside lebanon there are millons of lebanese around the world we need to dicover them bring them back and get a brand new start!!