Insurance issue forces El-Khatib out of team

CHANGSHA – Without its star forward Fari El-Khatib, Lebanon isn’t what it used to be – a highly competitive national team that could challenge the best in the region.

The 6-foot-4 Lebanese hotshot, considered by many as an NBA prospect at the turn of the millennium, opted out of their team minus the insurance that would cover for his lucrative contract in the Chinese league in case he gets injured here.

He’d served the Lebanese team since the 1999 FIBA Asia Champions Cup and he’s now 35.

“Fari has shown great interest to play for the national team. But he has a contract in China and he wanted to insure the contract,” said Lebanon coach Veselin Matic.

“The insurance in Europe is different than the insurance in Asia. We couldn’t find a way to insure,” Matic also said. “He would have loved to play. He showed love for national team, but at the end of the day there was no way. The problem is insurance.”

Matic said the premium to insure El-Khatib’s three-year contract with his Foshan team in China is over $40,000 (nearly P2 million).

El-Khatib has been the face of Lebanon basketball for years, a scoring machine that led the Cedars to World Cup stints in 2002 in Indianapolis, 2006 in Japan and 2010 in Turkey.

In 2007, El-Khatib averaged a whopping 27.3 points a game to lead Lebanon to a second-place finish behind Iran in the FIBA Asia Championship in Tokushima.

The Mazboud, Lebanon native impressed NBA scouts as early as 2002 during the Indianapolis World Cup.

In the course of the tourney, Michael Jordan’s personal trainer Tim Grover personally invited El-Khatib to work out with Jordan, Michael Finley, Ray Allen, Charles Oakley and Juwan Howard.

The New York Times said then “Michael Jordan believes Lebanon’s premier player should be in the NBA.”

Jordan was also quoted as saying: “Fadi El-Khatib may be the best talent at the moment. He has a lot of skills we just need to see him play in the NBA against players like Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Tim Duncan and I’m sure he’ll impress us big time. I personally see that he may even be able to achieve results against me (laughs).”