Maccabi Tel-Aviv (basketball)
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Maccabi "Elite" Tel-Aviv (מכבי תל-אביב) is a basketball team based in Tel-Aviv, Israel. It is part of the Maccabi Tel Aviv sports club, and their main sponsors for years have been the Elite confections company.
Maccabi Tel-Aviv is without doubt Israel's best basketball team (having won the Israeli championship 43 times), and among Europe's best basketball teams, having won the European cup 5 times since 1977, and finishing second 6 other times. Maccabi's first European championship was in 1977. In the words of its captain Tal Brody, this win put Maccabi on the map to stay. Maccabi won European championships again in 1981, 2001 (Suproleague), and in 2004, 2005 (Euroleague).
Though not even considered a real competitor to Mac. Tel-Aviv, the club's most bitter rivals in Israel have always been crosstown nemesis Hapoel Tel-Aviv, which has not won a league championship since 1968/69. Although within Israel there are many fan communities behind Hap. Tel-Aviv, Hapoel Jerusalem, B'nei HaSharon, and several others, Mac. Tel-Aviv's is the largest, and except for a few hard-core fans of other clubs, almost every Israeli identifies with Maccabi during international competition as representing them.
One of the problems with Maccabi's dominance is that although the team excels in Europe, most of its players are American or European. Their demolition of local clubs, who tend to have slightly higher numbers of locals, is that support for the development of a domestic market of players is trails lightyears behind the investment put into local football clubs. Football continues to be the street game in Israel, as it is in most of the world, while basketball is a game played in better developed cities.
In May 2004, Maccabi defeated Skipper Bologna in the Euroleague final game in an unprecedented landslide (118:74). They returned to the Euroleague Final Four in 2005, facing unprecedented odds due to the rise of the dominating CSKA Moscow club that was favoured and was also hosting the event. They were also matched in the semifinal against the highly touted Panathinaikos, known for one of the best defenses in Europe. However TAU Cerámica stunned CSKA Moscow and Maccabi downed Panathinaikos in a scenario that the European basketball community hadn't predicted. Maccabi proceeded to defeat TAU Cerámica in a very competitive final 90:78 on May 8, 2005.
Mac-TA's head coach, Pinchas "Pini" Gershon benefited greatly from the last Euroleague title, his third, and has become the most sought-after coach in Europe, not to mention a national hero. However, while rumours swirl around several members of the championship roster, notably Sarunas Jasikevicius, Gershon has signed with the club for one more season, ensuring that the club will remain power at least for now.
Trophies and Titles
- Domestic championships: 45
- Domestic cups: 35
- European championships: 5 (1977, 1981, 2001, 2004, 2005)
- Intercontinental Cups: 1982
Known players
Past players:
- Miki Berkovich
- Tal Brody
- Aulcie Perry
- Moti Aroesti
- Oded Kattash
- Nadav Henefeld
- Doron Jamchi (Israel's top scorer)
- Nate Huffman
- Beno Udrih
Current players:
- Derrick Sharp
- Sarunas Jasikevicius ("Sharas")
- Anthony Parker
- Tal Burstein
- Nikola Vujcic
- Maceo Baston
External link
- Maccabi Tel-Aviv Basketball Club (http://www.maccabi.co.il/english.asp) homepage
- Maccabi Tel-Aviv set many new records in the 2004 Final Four victory (http://www.euroleague.net/finalfour04/noticia.jsp?temporada=E03&jornada=22&id=684) (Euroleague)