Thursday, July 24, 2008 | 10:05 a.m.
If there’s a player at the three summer prep tournaments in Las Vegas that hustles more than Arsaland Kazami, we’d like to see him.
Battered and bruised, the 6-foot-7 forward refused to allow his Houston Select Black team to be beaten Wednesday night at Rancho High in the adidas Super 64 tournament.
And nobody has a more intriguing background.
Kazami hails from Iran and landed in the U.S. five months ago. He attends The Patterson School, in Patterson, N.C., about 75 miles from both Winston-Salem and Charlotte.
Peers have pelted him with questions since he came to America, and some have queried him about being the enemy.
“I always explain to them that, I don’t think so, your feeling is not true,” Kazami said in broken English. “I know the past between American and Iran. When I tell them where I’m from, mostly, they’re excited to talk to me.”
They probably feed off his excitement.
Although he misunderstood the word “ambassador” –- he said, no, he’s not “embarrassed” –- his English is commendable.
His smile and enthusiasm are infectious.
He misses his mother, father and sister, but they should know that he’s faring very well in the U.S.
After scoring 19 points to lead everyone in a 66-63 victory over Southern California All-Stars Elite, Kazami recited a list of colleges that are after him.
Oklahoma State, Syracuse, Seton Hall, Memphis, Missouri and West Virginia, he said.
“But that changes every day,” Kazami said as he unleashed a deep laugh that almost made his eyes water.
He is very interested in UCLA, because of the large Iranian population in Southern California. Again, though, he laughed. Bruins coach Ben Howland hasn't exactly been dialing Kazami's cell phone with recruiting pitches. In fact, Howland left Rancho right before Kazami's game.
A greenhorn in almost every way to American basketball, he knows enough about the vagaries of the recruiting process not to take too much of the off-the-court stuff seriously.
His Houston team starts playing in the championship bracket tonight at 7:40 p.m. in the Desert Pines High auxiliary gym.
On the court, Kazami, who has played for the Iranian Under-18 national team, is an ambidextrous bull and all business.
On the left side, he dribbled and twisted and connected on a tight lefty banker as a defender covered him like a wet blanket. He descended with his foe’s jersey in his face.
Another time, crouched over trying to save a ball near the baseline, a defender nailed him with a knee to his back, flattening him. When he stood, it looked like he needed a cane.
Soon enough, he returned to swinging the ball around the perimeter and penetrating holes in the middle of the SoCal defense.
Near the end of the game, after grabbing a defense rebound, he looked at coach Greg Muse on the bench and signaled for a timeout with his hands. On the bench, he dropped his head into his hands.
Afterward, he acknowledged that a Jacuzzi would be nice.
“I think so,” Kazami said, smiling, of course.
Traveling-team schedules are daunting in America, he has learned. At his first tournament, he was winded after playing twice in one day. Then he learned there was a third game that night.
“It’s not like that in Iran,” he said.
Yes, Kazami was smiling.
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