Maccabi Tel Aviv came to the game against Anadolu Efes after being defeated in Athens by Panathinaikos and Oded Katash. The same loss surprised the Yellows because they kept saying ‘we are Maccabi, we will not give up and we will fight to the end to show what Maccabi is’. However, the results do not justify this statement and certainly not the ability of the current season.
Last year Maccabi had a good season in the Euroleague, Anadolu also had a great season in the Euroleague and anyone can fantasize what would happen if Maccabi thought they could reach the Final Four and the Turks would think they could win the cup. Anadolu is a team with a big budget but it also has financial problems like most Euroleague teams. The Turkish team selects players and whoever joins the club stays with it for a long time and does not give it up.
Anadolu takes players that the big ones have given up like the Singleton card, Tibor Place, James Anderson and not to mention Brian Dunston who played here in the country and has been in Nadolu for several years when no one can get him out. Vasilya Mitchic also moved there from Bayern Munich and also Boa and Adrian Muarman arrived and got well into the team format. Both are French, a market that Maccabi does not look at at all. In addition, there is also Kronoslav Simon not to mention Simon and had it not been for coach Argin Othman wanting to give game minutes and promote a Turkish player like Sanli, the result and difference would have been bigger.
And now Shane Larkin – two years ago Larkin and Scotty Wilbkin were available and were then about the same size. Larkin was already after reaching the Euroleague when he did not find his place in the NBA and came to Basconia. Each team made its decision and it is clear today who did better than the decision. It’s not that Wilbkin in my opinion is a bad player, he’s a good player, but the problem with who he commanded with and around him.
Maccabi Tel Aviv wants to strive for the top spot and even if there is a reduction in the budget due to the corona crisis in the Euroleague, but the yellow team can not look and say ‘we got the maximum out of every player, we got out of every player in the team and the whole team 120 percent’. Yannis Sapropoulos led and assimilated a good defense at Maccabi last year, but some of the players who came to the team and replaced the leavers did not bring the required level of defense to the team in the Euroleague but even in attack they are far from required, when there are no good morals, no good game manager, no players. In a league like the Euroleague. Tibor Place is not one of the big stars who went through several teams and was absorbed by Anadolu, who has just returned from a long injury and in 10 minutes provided 10 points, 3 rebounds and 3 block shots, and it seemed that no Maccabi player could do anything against him.
But more than that – the exit to transition attacks. Last year, Maccabi had a great product in this, but where did it go today. Anadolu showed great ball movement that Maccabi does not have, where too many players dribble and do not move the ball and do so in a jarring way to a professional and unprofessional eye, and also players who were not considered good defensive players before arriving at the hall with Anadolu, showed great level of defense. ‘Fest-Barak’ that prevented Maccabi Tel Aviv from making easy baskets.
You can’t pick players just by statistics or their level of talent before they went to the NBA and failed there. You also need a professional eye that you can evaluate and no one can evaluate with complete success, but the success rates should be reasonable and Maccabi is not able to find the right players for the team. The Israeli champions also fail to create a team that plays together in the form and level needed to be a factor in the Euroleague. Sometimes in the process you pay a price for running a player to progress and next year will give more produce, but who is the player or new players that Maccabi is building on for next year that they will improve, be better and return Maccabi to the top of the Euroleague where it wants to be?
Unfortunately, the selection of players suited their team, and creating a team worthy of the Euroleague is far from satisfactory, to say the least at Maccabi Tel Aviv. The difference and the happenings on the floor against Anadolu in the hall only showed the differences between the teams that were almost equal at the beginning of the season, and today are far from each other. “We are Maccabi and we will fight to the end,” they said, but the team suffered this big loss unconditionally today. Will they take the right steps after that? Will they now analyze the results of the Euroleague with the right professional eye and move aside all interests and stakeholders?
Although the Euroleague season is not over yet and everyone will try to appear in full sportiness, Maccabi Tel Aviv still has a lot of work to do in terms of the results and decisions that come out of them and here is a big question mark.