A month ago. Two large jeeps await Danny Abdia and his delegation at Washington Airport, and drive them to the spacious and sweet luxury apartment, which is a short drive from the Capital One Arena. Yes, it is usually welcomed by politicians and diplomats who land in the American capital.
NBA League kicks off, special project:
The truth? Abdia has already arranged for himself the status of ambassador, without going through the White House, and he is probably the most talked about Israeli at the moment in the US, but now comes the proof stage. When an entire country is behind him and after igniting the imagination in the preliminaries, the child from Herzliya The dream for the fact, when it makes an exciting debut in the best league in the world, the long journey will begin in Philadelphia – and this is the moment to repay the first bill out of the 11.731,800 million dollars it is supposed to earn in the next three years.
Lost in a one-on-one with Kyrie
(Photo: AP)
The prodigy of Israeli basketball, who will celebrate 20 in two weeks, already feels at home – and not just because his mother Sharon is close to him. He managed to connect with two of the best players in the NBA, Wizards stars Russell Westbrook and Bradley Bill, and said that until recently he played with their characters on the PlayStation. In between, he took Kyrie Irving one-on-one, scored a basket with the buzzer on Kevin Durant’s head (for real, not on the console), and even recorded lighting the first Hanukkah candle in a video that drove the network crazy in Israel and the Jewish population in the US, .
A new vehicle was ordered for selection number 9 in the draft, and until he removed the nylons, the team attached a driver to him who took him to the training facility and returned it. Abdia is there with the team every day from eight in the morning until 17:00, then returns to the apartment to eat and rest a bit, then goes out to practice shooting with his personal trainer and Liko Provich. As you can see, this is not exactly the average basketball agenda in Israel.
Abdia signs the contract
(Screenshot from Danny Abdia’s Instagram account)
On Tuesday, Washington released an amusing video, in which the actors are seen celebrating Angie Pascheniks, with Abdia raising his spirits and singing “Today’s Birthday” in Hebrew, and even Westbrook joined the chorus. By the way, the Israeli has already become a kind of personal project for the guard who came in a trade from Houston. In one of the first videos released by the team, Westbrook is seen sitting on the side and talking to him, and even in games he often gives Rocky quite a few tips. “He’s smart and I want to learn from him as much as possible,” Danny said.
Abdia sings to Pascheniks in Hebrew in honor of her birthday
Bill, the second star of Washington, also praised Abdia after a less than good game, against Detroit, in which he scored 7 points (0 from 4 to three) in 32 minutes: “The thing I like most about Danny is his fighting spirit, he is not afraid “From no one. I want to see him more aggressive on offense, and have him look for the ring.”
In general, even though he is the youngest player on the roster, Abdia easily connected with his new friends, and one of the reasons for this is that most of the team is made up of players aged 21-24. Whoever is considered the closest player to him is Cassius Winston, who was also selected in the last draft. The club did not forget Danny’s traditional rookie chore, and was “doomed” to pamper the guys during the trips of the away games with snacks and drinks.
In Washington, they already realized on the night of the draft the marketing potential inherent in the Israeli, when thousands of followers were added to their social media accounts within a few hours, and from that moment on, they pumped the talented forward non-stop. There is not a day that the group does not upload a video or photo of Abdia, who cooperates enthusiastically and is interviewed quite a bit. The Wizards even opened a Twitter account in Hebrew, when the first tweet was – of course – a video of the young star calling on Israelis to follow the club through the new account.
Abdia greets Hanukkah
Together with the Israeli Ambassador to the United States
On one of Abdia’s first days in Washington, Israel’s (real) US Ambassador Ron Drummer came to visit in training to pay tribute to talent from the Holy Land. Danny knows how to play the media game, because he still has a good few years of experience in Maccabi’s pressure cooker Tel Aviv, and the fluent English – which he claims to have received from the many hours he spent on the PlayStation – only adds to all this idyll.
At the moment, audiences are not yet able to enter the hall, of course, but once parts of the U.S. population are vaccinated, more and more people will arrive. The exposure of a successful Israeli guy in a central city where there are quite a few Jews, including in its vicinity (New York less than four hours drive, Philadelphia two and a half hours and Boston six and a half), can significantly increase the average audience. We have not yet talked about fans coming from the country.
The question of questions in terms of loss is how much impact he will really have on the team in the first season. At the moment it is still unclear whether he will open in the top five or come up with the substitutes, but at least in the initial stage the direction is quite clear, as Roy Hachimura will be out for about three weeks due to an eye injury. Although the Japanese play in position number 4, it increases the chances that the Wizards coach, Scott Brooks, will open with Abdia already in the first game. It should be noted that the Latvian Davis Bartans is not in the health line either, so he is not expected to open either.
When the roster is full, four positions are already closed in the Brooks’ top five: Westbrook and Bill will rise in the guard positions, Hachimura will be, as mentioned, at 4 and Thomas Bryant at 5. Thus, in fact, the number 3 position in which the game of loss is completely open remains, with an Israeli waiting for a competition with two main players. The first is Troy Brown Jr. (21, 1.98m), who was selected 15th place by the Wizards two years ago, and comes after a not-so-bad season at all, with 10.4 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 25.8 minutes. The other is the German Isaac Bonga (21, 2.03), who on paper looks less threatening (5 points and 3.4 rebounds in 18.9 minutes last season), but his ticket is a strong defense, and the local media says he was very impressed with the coach at training camp.
“Abdia is my favorite to start in the top five in position number 3,” wrote recently Fred Katz, one of the top journalists covering the Wizards on behalf of The Athletic. “The least appreciated trait, but the most important in basketball is decision-making, and that of Danny is absolutely impressive.”
Katz gave as an example the same big basket that the Israeli forward scored on Durant against Brooklyn: “When he took the rebound in defense with five seconds left in the second quarter, then scored with the buzzer, he knew exactly how much time he had left. Young players do not tend to be aware of things. The goddess at the beginning of their journey. “
Brooks. Satisfied with her loss
(Photo: AP)
But Katz, like most U.S. reporters / commentators, is still skeptical about Abdia’s shooting: “We still need to see what happens with his shot to three. The fact that he scored a few in a training game or missed, still does not change the opinion about him on the subject. The shooting will greatly determine how significant Danny will be in Washington’s offense alongside Westbrook and Bill. He will also be able to contribute in other ways on offense if he knows how to move correctly without the ball and cut to the basket at the right moment. “It could just be the fifth option after Westbrook, Bill, Bryant and Hachimura.”
Katz also provided another option, and perhaps even a better one for Abdia: “If he goes up in the second five it will allow him to touch the ball and even run the game, which will not happen with Westbrook and Bill.”
Yes a quintet or no quintet, in the end Abdia is expected to get quite a few minutes during his rookie season, in which he will try to live up to the tremendous expectations he has.