Many must have been surprised when they heard that Tamir Blatt would join Alba Berlin, but when dives into the numbers understand the logic • The reasons that led the Israeli national team player to Euroleague

• Blatt vs. Sussman. On the way to Euroleague

  Photo: 

  Alan Shaver

All the way to Berlin. Not many Israeli players in recent years have come directly from Israel directly to the Alba Berlin-sized Euroleague group. 

Tamir Blatt, even if loaned back to Hapoel Jerusalem or another team in the first season, has made a big and important move for his career this past week, joining a neat and organized club with a good present, a promising future and knowledge in advancing and developing players.

Today, scouts and professional managers are not satisfied with the basics of point averages, rebounds and assists, but rather examine the player's impact on his team in defense and attack, choosing effective shots and shooting percentage, efficiency and more. 

To that end, we have been assisted by an analyst Oak Smoke who runs the recommended Facebook Page Box Out to analyze the great progress Blatt has made over the past two years, and his big impact on the game. We were actually trying to figure out what made a senior team like Elba Berlin choose the coordinator of the Israeli team.

When he's having fun, everyone's having fun. The true definition of a coordinator is a player who makes his friends and team better. As you will read later (and the attached tables), Hapoel Jerusalem is better in the minutes when Blatt is on the field.

Hapoel Jerusalem's offensive efficiency is significantly higher when it comes to hardwood, as is the shooting rate. In addition, 54.5% of the baskets that the team scores come after an assist when Ballat plays, compared to 48.9% without him, and the scoring percentage is also higher - data showing that the group attack performs much better when Ballet plays.

Group defensive efficiency, on the other hand, is slightly lower when Ballet plays, but the gap is not as big as you might think. Furthermore, statistics show that rival teams lose more balls when on the field. It is not clear whether the increase in rivalry losses is directly related to Ballett, who has improved the pressure he puts on the ball in recent months, but it is certainly a flattering figure. 

The modern scouting world analyzes the rate of effective throws and projectiles - a metric that checks the efficiency of the player's throws and projectiles, for example a 3-shot gives a higher score than a 2-shot. We've found with Blatt that Blatt's effectiveness has increased significantly this past season.

This season the young coordinator significantly reduced the number of shots from half distance (injections considered ineffective), and if in 2018/19, 81.3% of his injections were effective injections (in the ring area, outside the bow and penalty line), this season the rate increased to 89.1%. This is impressive data for a 23-year-old player who throws a lot and makes quite a few decisions. Accordingly, his effective fielding percentage and true shooting percentage went up nicely, as shown in the table.

You succeeded. If Blatt succeeds in Germany, as well as Tomer Ginat and Ithi Segev in the French league, this summer could turn out to be a good one for Israeli basketball in the coming years. 

After a long period when Israeli players have not been an attractive commodity in the European market, and with the great hype of young talents such as Dani Abadia, Yam Madar and Noam Spokesperson, the trend may be reversing.

The data in the article does not include yesterday's game between Hapoel Jerusalem and Maccabi Tel Aviv, which ended after the issue was closed