{"id":15989,"date":"2013-09-28T21:23:44","date_gmt":"2013-09-29T04:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=15989"},"modified":"2013-09-28T22:52:45","modified_gmt":"2013-09-29T05:52:45","slug":"basketball-haddadi-pens-contract-with-sichuan-whales-looks-to-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2013\/09\/28\/basketball-haddadi-pens-contract-with-sichuan-whales-looks-to-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Basketball – Haddadi pens contract with Sichuan Whales, looks to the future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Persianfootball.com – SICHUAN, Despite multiple signs of interest from various NBA teams, the best center in Asia, Hamed Haddadi, has signed with the Sichuan Blue Whales of the Chinese Basketball Association.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Haddadi has reportedly worked out with a handful of teams showing interest to sign him, such as the New York Knicks, New Orleans Pelicans and Utah Jazz just a week ago, although on Friday the 7\u20192 center preferred a 1.3 million dollar one-year contract offered by the defending Chinese champions.<\/p>\n

Haddadi also recently won the Asian Club Championship with Persian club Foolad Mahan over Al Rayyan of Qatar, dropping 27 points, snatching 17 rebounds, and added 4 blocks in the final.<\/p>\n

In August, the former five year NBA center was named most valuable player of the Asian Basketball Championship, beating the hosts Philippines 85-71 in the final, contributing a tournament-high 29 points and 16 rebounds to Iran\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n

Haddadi joined the NBA in 2008 with the Memphis Grizzlies, gaining four years of experience but earning averages of less than two points and six minutes of play a game with the club.<\/p>\n

Just last year Haddadi was signed by the Phoenix Suns mid-season, putting up the best performances of his career for the team. Haddadi earned a career high 11 rebounds against the Rockets, widely credited for the critical 107-105 win. In his last match for the Suns, Haddadi also put up 14 points, 7 rebounds and 4 blocks in less than 20 minutes of play.<\/p>\n

The Iranian became a fan favorite by Sun\u2019s fans, earning the renowned slogan \u201cWho\u2019s Your Haddadi\u201d for his big left-handed jams and hustle on the boards, when both center\u2019s Marcin Gortat and Jermaine O\u2019Neal were unavailable, leaving Haddadi to be the only real center on the Sun\u2019s roster.<\/p>\n

Although becoming a prominent figure in Phoenix, Hamed was waived by the Sun\u2019s in the offseason.<\/p>\n

Looking to the future, 28 year-old Haddadi will begin the season with the Sichuan Whales in November, possibly moving back to the NBA when the season routinely ends in late March\/April.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Persianfootball.com – SICHUAN, Despite multiple signs of interest from various NBA teams, the best center…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28670,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c20-other-news"],"views":4227,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28670"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}