Hamed Haddadi Might Be a Box-Office Wonder for the Memphis Grizzlies

That's right. To the fiery depths with Josh Smith, Elton Brand, Amare Stoudamire, and Carlos Boozer. No disrespect to Kevin Garnett intended, but the "Big Ticket" might be Hamed Haddadi—as far as Memphis is concerned. A survey/census shown on City-Data.com reports that there are 245 Iranians in the city limits of Memphis. The category "Other Arabs" equates to 202. These numbers may or may not have to be adjusted for population growth/decrease, but let's just use an even number of 400 possible new fans in Memphis alone, and 70.5 million back home in Iran. We will need a clever name to call this possibility, so let us use " The Yao Ming Effect ." Let me begin by saying I am not comparing Memphis' market to Houston. Houston is a bigger, more cosmopolitan city in a bigger, more cosmopolitan state. Houston also has a more significant population, and a larger ethnic enclave which relates to their foreign star. However, the size difference does not necessarily mean that there will not ... (link)