Basketbawful

Monday, October 30, 2006

Orlando Magic season-ticket holder Hooman Hamzehloui earned himself a season-long ban by allegedly calling alleged-center Dikembe Mutombo a racial slur during a preseason game. You can imagine how surprising this turn of events was for us. We had no idea the Magic even had season ticket holders.

The logical human side of me recognizes how tasteless, yet ironic, this altercation is. Hooman Hamzehloui is of Middle Eastern descent, an ethnicity that has been a lightning rod of endless racism in this country since 9/11. But apparently this guy for a moment felt this country wasn't racist enough, grinding his axe on a humanitarian that has donated millions of dollars to build hospitals in empoverished third world countries.

However, the illogical basketblogger would be quick to point out there are dozens of harmless, yet more creative ways you can rib this marginally talented 55-year old center. Start off with Mutombo's infamous pickup line, and throw in the fact that for every time he's done that damn infuriating finger-wag, he's been dunked on at least three times. Or that he's fluent in 9 languages yet I haven't understood a single word he's said since 1992. Or how he should be thankful that defensive 3-second calls in the league are only marginal at best, since you could clock him with an hourglass down there.

But I digress. Mutombo is the victim in this situation, and he has wholeheartedly accepted Hooman's apology. And, for Hooman's sake, I hope Black folks across the country have accepted his apology as well, since a casual Google search unearths way too much information on this guy...

4 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Brilliant! I just emailed him to say "Hello!"

10/31/2006 11:06 AM

Anonymous said...

All Hooman Hamzehloui needs to do is watch this commercial from the National Vanguard, and I am sure he will never make a racist statement ever again.

10/31/2006 1:43 PM

Anonymous said...

E mail the racist here hooman@mastersrealtyorlando.com

11/17/2006 1:29 PM

Anonymous said...

He's saying "Anniversary ya monene na ESPN", there's no chance you'd understand that unless you know a lil'bit of Lingala. It just means "big anniversary for ESPN". He probably didn't have the time in the spot to say the whol "happy 20th anniversary to ESPN" in that Congolese language.

11/18/2006 4:52 PM