Masoud Naderian Jahromi - Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
Farzaneh Mohtahami - Ph.D. Student of Sport Management, Islamic Azad University, Jahrom Branch, Jahrom, Iran

Purpose: The present study aimed to identify the factors of friendship between the players of basketball teams and its effect on the performance of players.Methods: The research is based on the purpose of basic research and is based on the collection of exploratory information and using the data theory of the foundation. The data collection tool was a semi-structured interview about friendship between players and a questionnaire. The statistical population of the qualitative section was the coaches, referees, fans and managers of basketball clubs who were selected as snowballs for the interview. The statistical population of the quantitative part of all the players of the Iranian Basketball Premier League in ۱۳۹۹ was ۱۶۸ people who were distributed among them by the method of the total number of researcher-made questionnaires ۱۳۰ players completed the questionnaire. The questionnaire was extracted from the qualitative section. To analyze the qualitative data, the foundation data theorizing method was used and in the quantitative analysis, the collected data were analyzed using the structural equation model in AMOS۲۴ software.Results: The results showed that culture, team norms and sociability play a mediating role in the relationship between friendship and individual performance and team performance. Analysis of qualitative interviews led to the identification of components of player friendship in six.Conclusion: causal conditions, pivotal phenomena, contextual conditions, intervening conditions, strategies and consequences. Analyzes based on the structural equation model showed that the development of friendship is social skills, cognitive and emotional empathy, personality traits and good mood among players. 

Keywords: Team Cohesion, Player Performance, Friendship Culture, Basketball Premier League