Dr. Oz (Mehmet Oz) was among the competitors in last night's NBA All-Star celebrity game in Arlington, Tex. The game featured Dallas Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban, actor-comedian Chris Tucker, actor Anthony Anderson ("Law and Order") as well as the musicians Common and Pitbull.
The East won the game over the West by a 41-37. I had a hard time finding the score of the game which I partially watched at a restaurant in Roanoke, Va., where Dr. Oz's show airs at 3:00 p.m. on WSLS/Channel 10 on weekday afternoons.
Thankfully, my friend Jeff in North Carolina found the score for me! (I almost gave up several times!).
We are posting an entry about the game because Dr. Oz is now the most famous Turkish-American in history. Though other Turkish-Americans, like the late, great record producer Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records, progressive talk-show Cenk Uygur (love his show, and his politics!) and Washington, DC, hairstylist Nuri Yurt (the personal hairstylist for Hillary Clinton) not to mention pro female wrestler Lisa Marie Varon/Victoria (who is also half-Vietnamese) have made a prominent name for themselves in their fields.
There are also two highly regarded NBA players from Turkey, including Mehmet Okur of the Utah Jazz, who has previously played in an All-Star game, and Hidayet (Hedo) Turkoglu of the Toronto Raptors.
A blog for the Utah Jazz said that anyone who actually watched this game likely had no social life and too much time on their hands, and from what I could tell there were a lot of missed shots, especially by Cuban, but it looked like all the 'players' had a good time. The game was coached by Magic Johnson (pictured here) for the losing West team and Alonzo Mourning for the East team, which I believe Dr. Oz played for.
Dr. Oz is the son of Mustafa Oz, who was also a doctor in Cleveland, Ohio, where the Oz family resided. Dr. Oz actually maintains dual citizenship with the United States and Turkey, according to Wikipedia and he served in the Turkish army.
The more famous Dr. Oz came to prominence for becoming one of America's leading heart surgeons. I actually got an email from him after I talked to him about an appearance on "The Charlie Rose Show." But, he was soon 'discovered' by Oprah Winfrey and the rest is (pardon the cliche) history. I doubt he would answer my emails now as he probably gets thousands a day!
Dr. Oz, who performed an actual prostate exam on his nationally syndicated show last week, actually does not (reportedly) treat patients who smoke which is ironic because Turkey has a large segment of the population which smokes though anti-smoking have recently been passed throughout the country!
The celebrity doctor also has a Twitter page in which he jokingly said that he looked forward to slamming the backboard on Friday night!
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