STFU: JK rolling back to form
TweetSTFU (Sunday Topical Feature for U): Let’s be frank. It is near enough impossible for Julian Khazzouh to be inconspicuous at the best of times, let alone the worst.
After all, at 209cm, the Sydney Kings centre towers above most mere mortals to start with. Then there’s that mop-top and the beard that also help set “Super K” apart from the rest of the NBL, let alone the general populace.
Even in Australia’s largest city, Khazzouh cannot walk Sydney’s streets unnoticed, if not yet as the centre of a powerful NBL club, then as a “pretty tall bloke”.
So imagine now how hard it was for him to become part of the scenery in Lebanon where basketball is the national sport.
“I wasn’t sure of what I was getting myself into,” Khazzouh said of moving there to play for Sagesse back in 2012 after finishing the NBL season as runner-up to Gary Ervin for the MVP award.
In actual fact, Khazzouh was recruited to Asseco Prokom Gdynia in Poland and wound up in Lebanon in a roundabout way.
“When I left Sydney the last time, I played in Poland for a Euroleague team,” he said.
“We lost the first couple of games, the money dried up and there was a clean out of players.
“A Lebanese team contacted me. Because my father is Lebanese it meant I could play there as a local.”
Which brings us back to Khazzouh’s initial uncertainty of what to expect, war-torn battlefields, danger lurking around every corner?
“What I did find was a country with no middle class,” Khazzouh said.
“People were either extremely rich or living in poverty, with nothing in between.
“Basketball is the national sport though so when the team plays, the country stops – everyone is into it, everyone.”
KHAZZOUH, FOR TWO: Julian in action for Sagesse.
While Khazzouh settled in well, he admitted that unlike Australia where life is fairly temperate from day-to-day, he was perpetually alert.
“I guess you’re always on guard,” he said. “Can something happen? Is it safe to go there?”
But while no troublesome issues of that nature emerged, another big one did.
“I think it’s pretty true with anywhere you play around the world, when you lose some games, the money dries up,” he said.
“The club made sure the Americans were paid but when you’re considered a ‘local’, you’re not that important.
“A few of us hadn’t been paid for three months or so.”
Two other players with dual-nationality were in the same boat with Khazzouh.
“Coming up to the playoffs, we had to put our foot down and we decided we wouldn’t play until we were paid.
“The three of us didn’t practice and they gave us all these assurances everything would be fixed.”
But it wasn’t.
“The other two got scared but I stuck to my guns,” Khazzouh said.
Already earmarked to represent Lebanon internationally, the situation began to get hairy as the club insisted Khazzouh get back on the hardwood.
“I knew if I didn’t get out now, I’d be stuck there for a long time,” Khazzouh said.
Fortunately, his wife already had returned to Sydney a week earlier to visit family.
It was time to slip out of the country. And that’s where we get back to the fact Khazzouh is a hard guy to overlook.
“Lebanon is such a small country,” he said. “Me walking down the street attracted interest, let alone anyone seeing me in the airport.
“I’d have to leave in the middle of the night, then try and stay out of sight (in the airport), sit in a corner, trying not to attract attention.
“I was pretty happy when I was finally on that plane.”
Not nearly as happy though as the Kings, who would be getting their Aussie franchise player back at long last.
“My relationship with Tim Hudson was the main key that brought me back (to the Kings),” Khazzouh said of Sydney’s then head of basketball operations.
“He told me about (new NBL Executive Director) Larry (Kestelman) and how the league was experiencing a resurgence under him.
“We kept in touch and Tim told me how they were bringing in the right people, then the TV deal happened and the return of the Brisbane Bullets.
“It’s amazing what’s been achieved in a very short time.
“There are mates of mine now who get together and go down the pub to watch NBL games.”
Hey now, what kind of “mates” of Khazzouh’s can they be if they’re only now switching on to basketball?
“They’re soccer diehards – the type of guys who get up at 3am to watch Arsenal on the TV.
“Now they’re interested in the NBL.”
There’s a lot to be interested about now too in the Harbour City, with AEG Ogden the new Kings owners and hands-on boss Jeff Van Groningen (here’s a fast irrelevant fact – in 2008-09 Khazzouh played for a team named HC Groningen in the Netherlands) already moving and shaking the club’s foundations.
The biggest call so far? Signing Andrew Gaze as head coach. (Then adding Dean Vickerman and Lanard Copeland to his staff.) The second biggest? Recruiting dual-NBL MVP Kevin Lisch.
“I knew the day before it was announced and I could not be happier with those two decisions,” Khazzouh said.
“To have the greatest Australian basketballer as my coach? I couldn’t be more excited.
“I’ve got a picture of myself as a 12-year-old standing next to the Andrew Gaze wax figure at Madame Tussaud’s.
“I was playing D on him.”
KHAZZOUH AT 12: Playing D on a wax Andrew Gaze.
Khazzouh said he was looking forward to seeing what Gaze is like but he expected him to be a players’ coach.
“I mean, he’s been there-done that so I’m sure he’ll bring a lot of that first-hand experience,” Khazzouh said.
Kings teammate Rhys Carter also has been glowing about what Vickerman will bring to the table, having played under him for the New Zealand Breakers’ 2015 NBL champion.
Carter and Khazzouh go back to early West Sydney Razorback days. They have the type of friendship most of us share with someone – that person you know well, don’t see for years, then when you do, the conversation picks up where it left off with hardly a beat missed.
“Rhys speaks very highly of Dean,” Khazzouh said.
“When I heard Lisch was coming, I was ecstatic. But Lisch as an Australian? Even happier.”
Khazzouh said he maintained a healthy scepticism about the NBL’s new three-import ruling.
“I’ve always found two imports is sufficient,” he said.
“Plus, if you can get a really good American for $70,000 there’s usually something wrong with him.
“Yeah, great stats in college, great guy, we’re getting him cheap ... then you find he drinks two bottles of whiskey a day.”
The good news for Kings fans is Khazzouh is well ahead in his rehab from a season-ending quad injury last season and he may even run out for a few Waratah League games with Luke Kendall’s Sydney Comets.
“My goal is to be right for Day One of the preseason,” he said.
“The quad that I hurt is made up of three muscles and one tendon. Originally, they thought it could be all four parts (I’d injured) but it was just the tendon that ruptured.
“That’s a four-month injury as opposed to what we first thought."
It means Khazzouh already is walking tall around Sydney, where he remains anything but inconspicuous.