Zaza Pachulia on the War at Home

Zaza Pachulia is the only current NBA player from Georgia, the central Asian republic currently at war with Russia. (Jake Tsakalidis, Vladimir Stepania and Nikoloz Tskitishvili make up the complete historical NBA Georgian contingent.) Via Ball Don't Lie, Micah Hart of the Hawks BasketBlog reports Pachulia has twice been on CNN this week pleading for an end to fighting.

Obviously, Pachulia is worried about his friends and family back home.

"Because of my age," says Pachulia, "A lot of my friends are still serving in the military. I have been able to get in contact with some of them, but others I have no idea. It's scary - I just want the fighting to end. Innocent people are being killed or losing their homes, and that just can't continue." [...]

"I am not trying to talk about who is wrong and who is right," he said. "The most important thing to me is that there be peace, and that the people of Georgia not have to live in fear for their lives or their homes."

This sort of unfortunate war-basketball cross-pollination happened repeatedly in the 1990s, as parts of the former Yugoslavia played unwilling host to devastating ethnic war between Serbs and Bosnians just as the European (and Slavic, more specifically) explosion in the NBA took hold.

As for this war, there are competing reports with regard to whether Russia has pulled out of Georgia. The Georgian men's national team (with Pachulia) had been scheduled to play qualifiers for FIBA Europe 2009 soon, but Zaza says that's second fiddle right now. Obviously.