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One hit too many?

On the crisis of Hapoel Tel Aviv and Danny Franco

After an optimistic summer, Hapoel Tel Aviv crashed again, and the coach who came to save it last season failed and absorbed most of the fire.

On the bad decisions in the summer, the decline in the number of spectators in the stands, and the man at the head of the system - against whom the criticism is growing

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• Hapoel Tel Aviv Basketball

• Danny Franco

• Rami Cohen

Almond light

Saturday, November 13, 2021, 2 p.m.

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Before analyzing the situation of Hapoel Tel Aviv, one must open with a confession.

The writer of these lines, like the vast majority of basketball players in Israel, estimated on the basis of the Reds' roster that the current season will be different, that the roster built is good enough to bring Hapoel back to the top.

In practice this did not happen.

In fact, it seems that Hapoel Tel Aviv's last real victory was in the arbitration with Yam Madar in the summer, and even there they did not really win until the end, because Madar did not stay in the team and they were left with money but not big.

On the eve of the sixth round of the season, the team is in a very bad situation, relegation is more realistic at this stage of the season than entering the playoffs, and it is true that it is still early but the trend is clear and if the change does not start tonight (Saturday, 19:40) against Hapoel Holon, Coach during the season for the third time in three years.

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They thought the staff was good enough to return to the playoffs, but in practice this did not happen.

Hapoel Tel Aviv players (Photo: Danny Maron)

Before touching on the mistakes made by the professional team, ie coach Danny Franco and professional manager Idan Steel, a look at the data: Hapoel Tel Aviv is the second worst defensive team in the league, and although in attack it is reasonable and ranked in the center of the table, it achieved one victory in five rounds.

The Reds were defeated outside their home by an average of 15 points, and in the House of Numbers they look good only thanks to the celebration against Maccabi Rishon Lezion.

So what is Hapoel Tel Aviv not doing well?

Does not save.

Offensive is not good especially outside the arc, 11th place in the league, but in the rest of the data is reasonable, including first place in the league in reaching the penalty line, and second in the league in rebounds, including the fact that it is first in defensive rebounds.

The problem is that the rivals who play against it are recording great days, mainly thanks to Hapoel's weak defense.

We will return to the summer that Hapoel Tel Aviv came to with a mostly built staff. JP Tokoto and James Young received contracts during the season, Bar Timor, Raz Adam and Lotan Amsalem continued and the team was mainly looking for a guard and a tall foreigner, an Israeli in the face positions and another replacement guard. As for the Israelis, Hapoel won everyone they wanted - Idan Zalmanson, Gil Benny and even Jonathan Schuldbrand. The first option in the foreigner was that of Joe Ragland, who preferred to go to a team that plays in Europe, and then was signed by Jacoben Brown.

So far Brown has mostly maintained instability, between games and during them, but at least he is consistent in his inconsistency.

The concern at Hapoel was from an early injury to Brown, and indeed in the Winner's Cup he has already fallen badly, but got up and looked at least at this stage of the season in good physical condition, less at the leadership level.

"There is no doubt that this is our big problem so far," said one of Hapoel's men last week. "Jacoben was great against Galil only when we entered the pit. He was amazing at that point, but even that was not enough because the others did not enter the game."

Consistent in inconsistency.

Jacoben Brown (Photo: Danny Maron)

In the chin position the story is even more problematic. The Reds dreamed in the summer of Justin Tillman making it clear in advance that he would not be coming, then tried to sign Tyrrick Jones to a contract extension and started waiting for his answer while playing in the summer league in a Phoenix uniform. Franco and Steel even traveled to Las Vegas and met up with Jones, but in the end Chin surprised and chose Pesaro. Hapoel remained confused and began to reject the offers that came in place of Jones, all players who were not in the country, contrary to what Franco used to bring. Malik Day and Kenny Wotten, not big success stories in Israel, were among those offered, and in the end the spoils fell on Dwan Hernandez.

After two weeks at Hapoel, they realized that Hernandez was not the man they needed: "We quickly realized that salvation would not come from there," the team says. "The problem was that Danny and Idan sat and waited for Jones until late in the summer. "Good foreigners like Justin Patton, Sasha Killia-Jones and Onoako from Herzliya also landed here. Everyone could have come here, but they did not."

From the moment it was decided to replace Hernandez, Hapoel Tel Aviv entered the problematic market that was created.

In fact, since mid-September, the only seniors who have arrived in Israel are Marin Marich, who has already been cut from Nes Ziona, Matthias Lasur, who will soon leave Maccabi Tel Aviv, and Derek Kook, who arrived as a big bet for Gilboa / Galil and meanwhile does not look bad.

All the teams that continue to look for a tall foreigner are stuck, among them that of Franco.

Quite a bit of failure falls on him.

Danny Franco (Photo: Danny Maron)

One thing Hapoel Tel Aviv agrees on - the current team in the existing squad is not worth one win out of five games, and quite a bit of the failure at the start of the season falls on Danny Franco. The coach returned to Hapoel in the middle of last season, under him the team remained in the league - not before getting even more entangled at the bottom - and now with him has entered the pit. Hapoel has a lot of criticism for the management of the game of Franco, who so far managed to lose a close game against Bnei Herzliya, to bench Jonathan Schuldbrand in a game where the team did not hit outside the arc and Raz Adam in a game that the team did not save.

The current crisis, which could largely cost Franco his job, is a critical point in the veteran coach's career. The last success he experienced was in his first season at Hapoel, the 2017/18 season, and since then he recorded a bad second season, a season in which he reached the National Cup final with Urbani Nahariya but failed in the league with a good staff, and last season built the weakest team in the league. Which crashed with him and also after him - all the way to the national.

That successful season of Franco and Hapoel Tel Aviv has been the only one of the Reds since Erez Edelstein left the club. Oded Katash, Sharon Avrahami, Rami Hadar, Roi Hagai for several rounds, Ariel Beit Halachmi and Yannis Castritis - all passed under Rami Cohen and no one succeeded. A year and a half ago, Hapoel decided to "move" her friends Rapaport, who was the representative of the private ownership, Cohen's partner and the man who was connected to the professional team. Rapaport is still waging a legal battle with the Reds, but the dismissal of someone whose management style was controversial did not advance the team, and so was the appointment of Idan Steel to the position of professional manager during the 2019/20 season, which Ariel Beit Halachmi began on the lines. So many coaches have passed, and those people who make the decisions and fail - are still in their jobs.

Cohen is still backed by most of the group's fans, but the votes calling for his replacement are no longer very small, but every time they go up, his supporters mention that Cohen was elected.

"It seems at this point that the only one who can move Rami Cohen from the position of chairman is Rami himself," says one of the group's longtime members of the group, "and if he does not think he is part of the problem, he is not going anywhere."

Not everyone else supports Rami Cohen.

Hapoel Tel Aviv fans (Photo: Berni Ardov)

It was enough to see the drive-in stands in the game against the Upper Galilee to understand the result of the conduct at Hapoel Tel Aviv in recent years.

This season the club sold fewer subscribers than in any other season, with the team attributing this to Corona, a pretty plausible explanation, but in practice even the continued lack of success does not help.

Against the Upper Galilee there were about two thousand spectators in the stands, and a few hundred tickets were sold.

"Failure after failure does not lead Hapoel Tel Aviv to a better point, on the contrary," says a veteran member of the association, "the situation of the team is less good than it was a year, two and three years ago and so on.

Tonight against Hapoel Holon, Hapoel Tel Aviv will have a kind of last chance - a loss for the Purples as well, with a difficult streak of games on the horizon that also includes a derby, and another war for relegation awaits the team that dreamed of returning to the Final Four at the beginning of the season.

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