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Wickside: A weekly section by Ahrela Weisberg
The good, the bad and the unknown: Behind Hapoel Jerusalem's signing blitz
The carefully planned media ambush.
The hype created in the US and Europe. The grandiose plan that was shelved. And the fact that makes Sean Kilpatrick think a lot more than Anthony Bennett and Matton Macker.
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Thun Macer
Sean Kilpatrick
Anthony Bennett
Hapoel Jerusalem
Ahrela Weisberg
Thursday, August 26, 2021, 1:30 p.m.
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Only once were Anthony Bennett, Thun Macker and Sean Kilpatrick on the same pitch in the NBA. It happened on December 1, 2016, when Milwaukee won in Brooklyn 93: 111; Kilpatrick, two days after bombing 38 points in the peak game of his career, this time settled for 14 losers; Bennett, his partner at the Nets, and Maker, his rival from the Bucks (who collaborated with the Guard the following season), managed to get into the final three minutes of Garbage Time and missed one shot.
The question is whether even in December 2021 they will be able to share a plot on a given evening. The answer to this is ambiguous even after joining forces last night (Wednesday), in Hapoel Jerusalem's fascinating signing blitz. For 82 days, from the end of last season, the Reds managed to land only two foreigners - and suddenly, within 228 minutes, three more arrived.
After the chilly and apathetic summer, the question marks that arose and the exclamation marks that refused to be revealed, the media ambush was meticulous and planned. Macker and Kilpatrick, it turns out, signed their contracts as early as yesterday morning; Bennett also became a Jerusalem player in the afternoon. Then came the teasers, and the welcome messages, while the only thing created with quick spontaneity was the gags in the prime minister's name.
Hapoel Jerusalem acted this summer as a compulsive gambler, living on the edge and intending to leave its fate in the hands of adrenaline. The global response to the triple signing illustrates how fascinating this experiment will be: senior U.S. tweeters rushed to inform their followers about the bizarre occurrence overseas, and the team that did not make it to the Champions League captured the headlines of international basketball sites. In Europe? ", A Greek journalist wondered, expressing in one sentence the mood around the staff that is forming in the arena. Most of the respondents, by the way, answered his question with" no ".
Jerusalem, hype around it.
More on Walla!
Hapoel Jerusalem Blitz: Anthony Bennett, Thun Macker and Sean Kilpatrick signed
To the full article
Collaborated with Kilpatrick in Brooklyn, how long will he collaborate with him in Jerusalem?
Anthony Bennett (Photo: GettyImages)
The good: Numbers 1 and 10 in the draft, or rather the one that was not selected?
With all due respect to the special human and sporting story that lurks in Macker's long, scorched body, and to the ongoing scandal that once thrived in Bennett's heart, the really senior actor who was laid in the capital is the one who attracted less attention.
To a greater extent, Kilpatrick is the key man for Jerusalem in the coming season.
Nymburk, in the years of Oren Amiel, was permanently placed at the top of the defensive indices of the Champions League;
And so should Jerusalem.
No more 95- and 100-point displays like in the days of Oded Katash, but a team that will specialize in toughness, energy, rebounds and lots of elbows and prostrations on the floor.
But even such a team, belligerent as it may be, will have to produce baskets to come out on the winning side.
That's how it is in basketball, you know.
And to reach 85-80 points in a stable and consistent manner, she will need leadership from Kilpatrick. Contrary to the lottery picks presented yesterday, the American Guard was not at all able to be drafted - but he is also the only one to set a double-digit average in the NBA (with 10.3 points per game in four seasons); Contrary to the spicy names brought around him, he is the one who has already gained significant experience in Europe. Kilpatrick has a tremendous offensive skill set, and there will be days when he will explode on the rivalry and even flirt with 30 points on a given evening. But in the way the staff is built (and it should be noted that its completion lacks one more foreigner, who will play in both forward positions), it will require stability and consistency.
Kilpatrick was worth 9.3 points per Euroleague game in the Panathinaikos uniform in 2019, and 11.9 in the Spanish league with Gran Canaria last season - but in both he was not the main offensive tool.
Jerusalem depends quite a bit on whether he is able to become the ultimate scorer moving for the first time in a long time around 17-16 points on average.
Retin Obsuhan is the dowry brought to him by the coach, and he is the game manager and the true leader who will drive the offense (and also the defense);
Jaylen Adams looks like a potential points machine, but as someone who arrives at a young age and has no European experience, he is suspected of betting that it is not known if and when he will fit in completely;
This makes Kilpatrick the settled and responsible man who will have to take on the craft of shooting.
In short, try and be James Paladin.
Even on the eve of his career high, he did not score a point.
Bennett on draft night (Photo: AP)
The bad: Why is Bennett not a "big name" at all?
No. 1 pick in the draft that came to Europe:
1977 Kent Benson (Canto)
1978 Michael Thompson (Caserta)
1979 Magic Johnson (Borussia)
1980 Joe Berry Carroll (Milan)
1983 Ralph Sampson (Malaga)
1996 Alan Iverson (Basiktash)
1999 Michael Olawkandi (Virtus Bologna)
2013 Anthony Bennett (Fenerbahce, Hapoel Jerusalem)
On a normal day, and not when he was announced 73 minutes after Kilpatrick and 103 minutes before Elon Sasson, Bennett would have become a major item in his own right, backed by historical data with no practical significance (Like the one above), in quotes from the past and in professional, sociological, psychological and anthropological analyzes that will try to explain the failure generated by the No. 1 pick in the 2013 draft; That draft one came out of, Yannis Antocompo.
Bennett still manages to garner deals around the fact that he is a "big name." After all, no one would take a player with a career average of 4.4 points in the NBA too seriously, and certainly not one whose longest tenure in one team lasted one season; But it's still the same Bennett who was selected first in the draft, and in the absence of safe stocks in the power forward position, it might be worth betting on him, because he has talent, and because he is a "big name".
So here's the DP: Bennett is not a big name. Big names are those who have had glorious careers, or been part of ornate dynasties, or have sat on fat contracts and issued monstrous averages. That is, become big names through big displays on the hardwood. The Canadian, who lives on Edio to this day, is the night of the draft. And on this record night, too, he did not score a point.
So it's nice that for the first time of all time, the first draft pick comes to play in Israel; But this, on paper, is the least good and least promising signing of the three. In the end, the Reds need a miracle to get Bennett out of what he is really worth, and succeed where all his other teams have failed (and such were, thank God, quite a few - 11 in eight years). Jerusalem itself knows this, too, so it took care to wrap itself in the exit clause as early as October.
This wild gamble, symbolically, takes place precisely in the slot that was supposed to be the most solid. Amiel settled early on Kerry Blackshire, and until the dismantling and reassembly of Gilboa / Galil it seemed that this deal was about to close, but it eventually fell through. And maybe, in fact, Jerusalem should not have grazed in the first place and looked for a player in that position.
In the first place, it makes sense in the strategic decision to completely erase the trauma from last season and replace all the foreigners, but in the end it is examined in the light of the alternatives;
And if it ended in a player's temporary contract with such a problematic resume, wouldn’t it have been better for the team to keep Suleiman in Remo, and trust the only player who really expressed care last year until the moment he fell into the abyss?
It is doubtful whether Bennett will contribute more than him.
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The question marks are the secret of his magic.
Maker blocked by Joel Ambide (Photo: AP)
And the unknown: Sussman, spokeswoman, mackerel and everything in between
Macker's case incorporates into it everything that happened this summer at the arena. Unlike Kilpatrick and Levant, whose names have only come to the table in the last three days, the deal to bring him has been brewing for about two weeks under the radar; And like them, he too was not in the original plan of building the group.
Jerusalem set itself a pretentious strategic goal at the beginning of the holiday - to build a new and renewed Israeli skeleton under the leadership of Yuval Sussman and Noam Dovrat; She was close to getting Sussman, but then the offer came to him to become a foreign player in the Euroleague, and the Reds immediately realized that they had no chance of fighting Alba Berlin; They offered quite a bit of money for a spokeswoman, but encountered a wall in a sharp, clear and simple message - Maccabi Rishon Lezion chairman Yitzhak Perry was not willing to listen and was not willing to give up his rare talent.
When these two grandiose plans fell through, the concept changed. The club realized that there was no leadership alternative in Israel (another gag almost associated with Bennett's name came up here), and went for a greyish local staff, one of the least talented this club knew, with a very defined and perhaps even marginal role; In this way of thinking, Itai Segev's defensive physicality is much more appropriate than Idan Zalmanson's potential to provide points from the substitute chin position. The offensive load will carry, more than ever before, the six foreigners.
Macker is a different and special actor, whose life story is even more amazing than the origins of his professional life, and who managed to drive America crazy even before he turned 20. It is not clear what went wrong with him along the way, and how he got lost like that.
It is not clear in what position he is really supposed to play (in defense he will surely function as a chin, to block stray balls, change shots, prevent intrusions and take advantage of his rebound, but on offense he will surely score better from the outside than Bennett).
It is also unclear whether it fits the style of play in Europe, and even more so than that customary in Israel (when did a 2.13m tall player succeed in the Premier League?).
In short, nothing to do with Macer is unclear.
And that's exactly what's so interesting about him.
If it ended in a temporary contract for a troubled player, wouldn’t it have been better for him to stay?
Braimo vs. Blackshire (Photo: Bernie Ardov)
Only in about ten days, less than a month before the opening match in the Champions League (and two weeks before what may be the meeting with Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Winner's Cup semi-final), Jerusalem will hold a full-time training session - also subject to the last foreigner not signing and landing in Israel until the end of the month.
Amiel, and the system around him led by Guy Harel and Yotam Halperin, took quite a few risks this summer, and stretched the timeline drastically to land the players he believed in: those who remained hungry, who believed in their ability to reach or return to the NBA, and were in no hurry to compromise At the middle level of Europe.
This season, more than ever, the formation of the team at the early stages of the season is significant.
The first two games in the Champions League are critical, as both will be played at home;
Ranking in the first round of the Premier League is crucial in order to participate and compete in the National Cup.
Like a compulsive gambler, who lives on the edge and intends to leave her fate in the hands of adrenaline, loves.
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