Basketball: Kazakhstan lacks good players: Astana basketball team captain

Rustam Yargaliyev, Astana basketball team captain said that there is a lack of good basketball players in Kazakhstan. He said this during a weekly BloGpost program at STV TV channel while answering questions in Lie Detector Show, Tengrinews.kz reports. “There are very few good basketball players in Kazakhstan. There are no basketball schools, especially there are no children’s schools. Coaches are supposed to come to such schools, watch the matches, invite the best players, so it is important to establish at least one or several good basketball training centers. There are just 4-5 high-qualified players in each of the team in Kazakhstan at present; all the other payers on the teams are too young. A limit has been set for the teams in terms of the number of Kazakhstan players that are supposed to be one the field: last season it was three Kazakhstan players and two legionnaires, and this season it is four legionnaires and one Kazakhstan player, because we lack our own players," Astana basketball team’s captain said. According to Yargaliyev, the sports equipment and gear is on a high level in the team. “The play field meets the NBA (National Basketball Association) standards. All the players have got a full gear; everybody has got winter and summer outfit, we’ve got everything. Much is being done in this direction. A famous coach from Europe - Matteo Boniciolli - has been invited, he is training our basketball players now. Olympic champion Valery Tikhonenko is the director of the Club. We have invited these best people to promote Kazakhstan basketball and to popularize it among the population. I think that if the development continues at the same pace will get good results in three years.” Rustam Yargaliyev is a seven-time basketball companion of Kazakhstan and one of the best basketball professionals of the country. However, he said that the sports authorities are not pay enough attention to basketball. “Everybody has forgotten about basketball. You know, wrestling, boxing, football and hockey are the popular sports now. Basketball is not so popular in Kazakhstan. If it was popular the authorities would have allocate some funds for the team to travel to the Asian Championship. We’ve got the national team, we’ve got good players for the team and we’ve got a highly-qualified coach to train the team. However, Kazakhstan Basketball Federation said that there were no funds that could be spent on basketball at the moment.”