It has happened that some players lie about their age, especially those who are not from the American continent. On the other hand, it is much rarer that their complete identity is assembled from scratch! It is however the strange rumor which circulates around a respected veteran …
Ersan Ilyasova’s name probably means something to you, as the interior has been on the NBA circuit for quite a while. Apart from a two-year freelance in Spain, he has even played in the big league for 14 seasons! A rather remarkable course for a non-American. The guy is known to be a solid player of rotation, specialist of the passage in force and turning at 10 points and 5 rebounds of average in career.
In addition, he was often considered a very good teammate by his peers. But did they really know him? Indeed, it could be that Ersan Ilyasova never existed … and that it is only a false identity. Several media have indeed relayed a funny rumor about the Turkish international for years. The site Sideline Sources notably did a recap of the story recently, which is quite mind-boggling:
Ersan Ilyasova, a character created from scratch?
Turkish records of Ilyasova indicate that he was born in 1987 in Istanbul, making him 33 years old. However, in 2003 a curious report was published by the Turkish news site Hurriyet Daily News. It seems that Ilyasova is not Turkish, that he was not born in 1987 and that his name is not even Ersan. According to Fanatik, a Turkish sports media outlet, Arsen Ilyasov, an 18-year-old young man, entered Turkey from Uzbekistan in 2002. He had an Uzbek passport and claimed Uzbek nationality. Oddly enough, the governments of both countries never heard from Ilyasov again.
A month after “Ilyasov” entered Turkey, a Turk named Semsettin Bulut said he forgot to register his son’s birth 15 years earlier. Without asking too many questions, the Turkish government registered her son, coincidentally named Ersan Ilyasova. They enrolled Ilyasova at the age of 15, making him three years younger than Ilyasov.
It almost feels like a spy movie in Hollywood! The player’s name could therefore be Arsen Ilyasov, in truth. We will not give too many points for originality, the two surnames are very similar. But why should the veteran have resorted to such a ploy? As the site explains, it could have geopolitical and ethnic causes. His origins would have endangered him from his earliest childhood, during the time of the Soviet Union:
He is openly a Crimean Tartar, an ethnic group native to southern Russia and northern Ukraine. The Tartars were once under the Communist influence of the USSR. Therefore, Josef Stalin attempted to persecute and resettle anyone he could find. Ilyasova’s family may have been among the persecuted and exiled in Uzbekistan. If so, Ilyasova’s migration to Turkey was aimed at escaping the racism and poverty that remained even after the fall of the USSR.
It is impossible to know now if all this is true, and we also doubt that the strong winger will ever give us his side of the story. What is certain is that we are not dealing here with a most classic case. Maybe the future will tell us more!
