A 17-hour flight is enough to make anyone feel lethargic. Throw in a bout of food poisoning on top of spending all day in an airplane, and a workout with potential NBA players is probably not going to make a guy feel better.
But that was Arsalan Kazemi’s introduction to the Philadelphia 76ers a year ago. After a long flight and a bad meal, the 25-year-old second-round draft pick (No. 54 overall in 2014) pulled on a uniform and went to the summer league.
Needless to say, it was not an ideal situation.
“It was bad,” Kazemi allowed.
But things are different this time around for the undersized power forward. Listed generously at 6-foot-8, Kazemi didn’t have to fly so long in order to join his summer league teammates at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. This time, he spent some of the offseason working out in Houston, Tx., where he spent the first three years of his college basketball career playing for Rice University.
And after playing his final college season at Oregon before jetting to visit family in his native Iran, Kazemi has a year of playing professional basketball in China under his belt and a lot more experience.
It’s made a big difference.
NBA
“He’s playing a little quicker,” said Sixers Las Vegas Summer League coach Lloyd Pierce. “He has great basketball skills and he’s always been an intangible type of player. So him being here and being in shape and learning our system and our sets will help him make decisions a lot faster.”
It’s not going to be easy for Kazemi to crack the Sixers’ roster this season. With rookie Jahlil Okafor set to take the center position, Nerlens Noel looking to improve on his rookie year, and the possibility of Joel Embiid set to make his debut, the Sixers are stacked in the frontcourt.
Add in forwards Carl Landry and Jason Thompson and the Sixers’ depth in the paint is impressive.
So an undersized power forward with a limited offensive game has the odds stacked against him from the jump. Nevertheless, Kazemi is trying to carve his own niche as an intangible-type player while working on a jumper.
“He’s a four and hopefully we can stretch him,” said Pierce, who coached Kazemi in summer league last year. “He’s always been an effort guy — offensive rebounds, diving on the floor, extra possessions — that’s his thing.”
He's smaller than most NBA power forwards, but Kazemi says his defensive versatility separates him from most power forwards. Plus, he says, he has one intangible that is tough to measure.
“Some players play the game with heart,” Kazemi said. “You can’t teach someone to have a heart to play the game. I play with heart and I don’t mind getting dirty.
“Everyone knows what I do best — I’m a defensive guy. I get a lot of rebounds and make a lot of hustle plays. I’ve been trying to add a little bit of a jumper and I’ve been working on that."
The numbers bear that out, too. Playing for the Chongqing Soaring Dragons in the China Basketball Association, Kazemi was second in the league with 3.1 steals per game, and put together a 51-point performance to average 15 points. He was also fifth in the league with 13.7 rebounds in 27 games. He shot 67 percent from the field (only 58.1 percent on free throws), but didn’t stray too far from the basket.
“Competition is the best thing in this sport,” Pierce said. “We have a logjam at forward, but the good thing is it will make our practices that much more spirited. The chances are up for grabs for everybody.”