The lack of Yuval Sussman and Omri Caspi in large parts of the season forced Maccabi Tel Aviv to find professional solutions, and while the Israeli champions, as well as other Euroleague teams, have long since stopped counting the minutes of the game and the importance of local players Because all over Europe there has been a drastic decline in the minutes of play of those locals.
The study, conducted by Serbian analyst Dmitry Chorcic on RunRepeat.com (Click here for full details), Analyzed 2,634 local Euroleague players over the 21 seasons since the establishment of the plant in its current format. As a sample basis for the study, an analysis was performed of the last three seasons compared to the first three seasons. In recent seasons there has been a 36% decrease in the minutes of play of local players compared to the first seasons. Greece and France are the only countries where the share of minutes has not changed significantly over the years.
This season: Only 10% of the minutes go to Israelis
In the first seasons, the locals got about 44% of the game minutes in the entire league, while in recent seasons this figure has dropped below 30%. Young local players, up to the age of 26, experienced a particularly steep decline of 63% in the minutes of play they received in the last 3 years compared to the first years. The Israeli players are in a rather dubious club, alongside Russia, Turkey and Italy, all of which have seen a drop of more than 50% in the minutes of the game. For example, Italian players received 36% of the minutes in 2003, while in the last three years this figure has crashed to only 9%.
Over the years, the Israelis of Maccabi Tel Aviv have experienced a dramatic decrease of 54% in the share of minutes – the third largest decrease on the continent. If only local players are weighed and the citizens are taken out of the picture, an even gloomier picture is obtained. Israelis’ injuries, the picture is even gloomier: only 10% of the minutes of the game are given to Israelis, a historic low because in no Euroleague season have Israelis received less than 20% of the total minutes.
As befits the former Yugoslav countries, Serbia and Croatia lead the share of minutes they give to players up to the age of 26, with an average of 40%. Russia ranks last with only 8%, Israel fourth from the bottom with only 10.3%.
Will they continue in the development trend?
According to the conclusions of the study, there is no doubt that the fact that in the Euroleague there are no limits on the amount of foreign players in each team has harmed the status of the local player. As mentioned, Maccabi Tel Aviv, as well as most Euroleague teams, do not attach much importance to the amount of minutes the local players get, but the Israeli champion is already in the middle of a process that began a few years ago, in which it makes great efforts to produce players at the senior level.
What started with Yuval Sussman and Danny Abdia, and even before that with many players who grew up in the youth department and now play in other teams in the Premier League, continues today with the Yellows’ effort to develop players like Dori Sahar, Idan Albert and Yonatan Atias. But at the moment it seems that these players are in a good direction to develop into legitimate super-league players, and are not yet ready to move to the Euroleague level. Maccabi hopes that this process will mature in at least two of the three, but until then, the share of minutes as revealed by the study is expected to remain at a low level.
