Patrick Gardner will start Saturday in what could be the biggest game in Egyptian basketball history Saturday. A win over New Zealand would mean an Olympic bid for the Pharaohs in next year’s Paris Olympics.
The game, in the Mall of Asia arena in Manila, would also give the Egyptians a 3-2 record in the FIBA World Cup, quite the accomplishment considering the African nation of 109 million people hadn’t won in FIBA play since 1994 before this week.
Gardner, the Nets’ 6’11” training camp invite, has had an up-and-down experience in Manila, scoring two points in Egypt’s first and fourth games, but 13 and 20 in the second and third, giving him a scoring average of 9.