It's tough to predict how Carl Elliott and Asghar Kardoust will interact if they find themselves sharing space on the court in Salt Lake City today. Maybe they'll smile at one another. Maybe they'll exchange a Barack-and-Michelle fist bump (count on Fox to misinterpret it). Maybe one of them will plant an elbow in the other guy's sternum. Happens in basketball all the time. No harm, no nuclear alert.

The world isn't that simple. The world is a dangerous place, fragile and violent. The world is suicide bombers in Baghdad. The world is the Taliban flexing its muscles in Afghanistan. The world is the horror of Darfur. The world is misery in Gaza. The world is innocents being trapped daily across the planet in crossfires that kill and maim and destroy.

What does basketball have to do with that turmoil?

Nothing, really.

And everything.

At 5 p.m. today, Mountain time, a squad of players culled from the NBA's Development League they're dubbed the D-League Ambassadors will take on Iran's Olympic team, and the only reference to "axis of evil" will be if the Iranians have somehow incorporated the triangle offense into their attack.

This explains how Elliott, of the Sioux Falls Skyforce by way of George Washington, and Kardoust, who suits up for Saba Battery of Tehran, might come to bump into one another. The Iranians have been invited here by the State Department to play four games in Utah in preparation for the Beijing Olympics. They'll also be able to chat up the minor leaguers and NBA coaches and players, and they'll visit some cultural sites.

And what's not to applaud about that?

"I think the timing is very good," Dan Doyle, founder and director of the University of Rhode Island's Institute for International Sport, said yesterday. "As we continue to hear ramped-up dialogue about some sort of military intervention in Iran, these types of things can be very effective in forging relationships that can lead to solutions at higher levels."

Sport, at its best, can do that (see: Ping Pong Diplomacy, 1971-72). No, games alone won't reduce tensions. They can't dispel concerns America and Israel have about Iran's nuclear program. They can't erase fears Iran has of an assault from the U.S. or Israel. But they can create good will and common ground among individuals, with nothing more at stake than numbers on a scoreboard. And if everyone behaves and embraces the moment they can send a small but powerful message of hope and possibility at a time when we need every bit we can cling to.

"It's a barrier-breaker," said Doyle, who's organized similar events in the U.S. and other countries. "If we're going to make progress in the world, we have to explore these avenues."

Cue Jordan Farmar. The Olympics begin Aug. 8 amid pomp and flag-waving. By then, the Lakers guard will be in Israel, quietly promoting brotherhood. Farmar, who's Jewish, is going overseas to run camps at which Israeli and Palestinian children will be brought together to learn about defensive footwork and each other. It's not penance for losing to the Celtics, it's peacemaking.

"If you can have a good time with someone you're supposed to be enemies with, and you guys can work together, things can be better for your future," Farmar told the Los Angeles Times. "Sports can be a ground where everyone has fun and when you're out there having a good time, you don't really think about everything else that's going on."

They'll hoop it up in Salt Lake today. It's a game where everybody wins.
Contact Bob Lipper at (804) 649-6555 or blipper@timesdispatch.com