Tiktekno: clip summarizing today's events in sports, 18.4/Sport1
Two and a half months ago in total, Hapoel Tel Aviv felt that it could subdue all the rivals from the present and the demons from the past. It took first place in the Premier League, waited for the State Cup quarter-finals draw and secured its place in the Eurocup quarter-finals with an easier than expected 85:91 victory in Badalona, in a game in which it already led by 22 points.
The top of the Reds' score list that evening, precisely in the hall where they were eliminated last year, illustrated how deep they are and how well they conducted themselves: Will Cummings, who came during the season as a replacement for the injured Jacob Brown, scored 19 points; Brown himself, who recovered in the meantime (temporarily), added 12; So is Dez Wells, another one who joined up the road; Lexavier Manford had 16 points.
And here is the summary of the events since then: Manford, who was caught for drug use, is the only one of the four who will continue to wear red this season. Cummings left yesterday, Wells joined him today, Brown was shut down again and ended the season - and coach Danny Franco also had time to pack his things from his office and disappear. His assistant, Barak Lederer, was appointed temporary coach and yesterday returned to his original position, which Stefanos Dedas will fill starting tomorrow. Sounds a lot, and that's not all.
Hapoel managed to fly in the European quarter-finals and the cup quarter-finals, and dropped to second place in the league. On the face of it, this is exactly the situation it was in last season - which was recorded as a success story. So what is the cause of the feeling of disintegration around the club?
Expectations rose - or to the point of "disproportion", as Franco claimed in an interview that in retrospect cost him his job, probably no less than the results on the field. The loss last year in Badalona in the debut season in the Eurocup was a routine and almost expected event, in contrast to the loss of the "home" advantage against Besiktas from sixth place; The previous elimination from the cup at the hands of Hapoel Jerusalem of Aleksandar Džikić was also seen as logical, but not this time, against the same Jerusalem with Shay Ularchik and/or Theo Yanakopoulos and/or Yonatan Alon on the lines (delete the unnecessary).
As the weeks pass and the days pass, the picture becomes clearer: Hapoel decided to part with Franco without any plans for the future. Although his dismissals were on the grill for three weeks, from the expulsion from Europe to the expulsion from the Cup, they seemed to catch the decision makers by surprise - and what happened after them will illustrate this.
In the first days, they tried to find a high-volume replacement who would also start planning for the next season, then searches began for a foreign sports director (and there was an understanding that it would be better to leave the coach's slot open for his decision), and later there were already those who got used to the fact that Lederer would stand on the lines until the end of the season. After this week's loss to Maccabi Ramat Gan, another U-turn was made, and Dedas was placed during Bezeq - not least due to the fact that he agreed to sign a two-month contract. Hapoel Tel Aviv embarked on the adventure of layoffs for fear that you will once again reach the well and not drink from it. Right now, she can no longer be sure that she will even reach the well.
Ofer Yanai's arrival at Shlomo Hall and Matan Adelson's arrival in the capital may mark the beginning of a new and different era in Israeli basketball. But the debut season of both, with the surrounding conditions created by the war and also with the crises and mistakes made regardless of it, mark the first semester in the school for novice owners.
In contrast to Jerusalem, where the first farewell to the coach was forced upon them and the second farewell was due to a mistake in the appointment of his replacement, just before (or after) a colossal failure - in Tel Aviv until recently they felt that they were in the midst of a historic season. Either way, before reaching the decision stages, both clubs find themselves in a continuous crisis, with a limited and problematic squad and a drop in the level of expectations.