Tiktukno - summary of today's events in sports, 19.1 (Sport1)
Maccabi Tel Aviv will take to the floor tonight (Thursday, 21:05) at Menorah Hall and complete a ninth consecutive game without Alex Poithers.
On December 5, the Yellows announced that the American infielder would undergo surgery that would effectively end his season, and since then, a month and a half, eight Euroleague games have been played, and they still haven't brought him a replacement.
If there are no last-minute changes, Maccabi Tel Aviv will advance to the next match with a new reinforcement player - Suleiman Barimo, who was chosen after the Israeli representative in the Euroleague exhausted quite a few other options on the market.
On the face of it, it seems that during this period Maccabi Tel Aviv managed to stabilize itself, reinvented Jake Cohen, got more than Roman Sorkin and Josh Niebo, and most of all got Jarl Martin in a big way.
However, despite the good situation, Maccabi Tel Aviv knows that over time Poithers' disadvantage will become apparent, and already there are those who blame the disappointing loss in Athens last week on the fact that another player was missing in the rotation.
Maccabi Tel Aviv feels that they will be there until the end in the playoff battles, for better or for worse, and do not want to find themselves in the end with the feeling that they could have made it but missed.
Therefore, despite the stabilization of the team situation, they made the effort to add an interior player.
Will Raymo be the trump card in the end?
time will tell.
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Kind of default.
In Raimo (Photo: Danny Maron)
"In the summer, you did a better job with the names you put up for the team," Oded Ketch scoffed at the names that came up as options to strengthen the team after Poithers' injury a few days later.
One of the names was Suleiman Barymo.
"The market is tough," Ketch analyzed last week the situation that led to Maccabi Tel Aviv not being able to add an interior player for a month and a half.
If we look at the Euroleague and Eurocup since Poythers' injury, five players who could fill the gap have been mentioned - but each of them ended up in a different team.
Kostas Antetokounmpo was the first to make the way to Europe from the NBA and signed with Fenerbahce.
After him, Akila Polunara was ejected from Andolo Eps, and recently arrived at Zalgiris Kovna.
Polonara's place was filled by Chris Singleton who was without a team for a long time.
Chima Monaka, the player of the season in the FIBA Champions League, returned from the Sacramento Kings and signed with Monaco, and very recently the center Michael Eric, who has a history of several years in the Euroleague, arrived.
Apart from Eric, each of the players on the list were candidates to come to Maccabi Tel Aviv in the recent period, but finally landed in other places.
"For several years, it is very difficult for us to deal with other teams in Europe that offer very large sums of money," admitted one of the Maccabi Tel Aviv staff this week.
"Now, when the player market is very scarce, every player who is somehow thrown into it becomes a target of several Euroleague teams, and in this game it is more difficult for us."
They also say in Maccabi Tel Aviv that some of the players on the list above could have come, but "some of them were players that Oded Ketch was not whole about".
The coach was looking for a player who can play both interior positions and with good shooting from at least half distance, if not from the outside.
Braymo should answer some of these elements, although on the face of it this season he is much less good in a quality league like the Turkish league.
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Pollonara (Photo: GettyImages, Emanuele Cremaschi)
What prevented and blocked some of Maccabi Tel Aviv's moves financially is the Jaylen Adams issue and another player who may leave the team.
The arrival of Adams was unusual for Maccabi Tel Aviv at this stage of the season, and as last season Mathias Lasor was cut early for financial reasons after joining temporarily, the arrival of Adams for the entire season will cost the Yellows more than 300 thousand dollars in the general calculation.
"Because it was known that it would not be easy to bring in a player in Poythers' place, the idea of surgery was the last thing we wanted to do," Maccabi Tel Aviv admitted.
The decision to go for the same surgery was ultimately when the Yellows reached a situation of no choice, when Poythers could no longer function properly.
If you subtract the amount that Maccabi Tel Aviv will receive from the insurance on Poythers, the team is left with a not very large amount of money to make a change in the roster.
But if they exceed the budget quite clearly, there will be no choice but to go for the option that the club hoped to avoid - releasing a player from the squad in order to add a replacement.
"Obviously, if there was an open check to bring a player, it would look different," admitted a club official.
"Behind us is not the state as in the case of the Red Star which could have brought Campasu or a rich football team as with other teams."
Getting to know Braymo has taken its toll.
Catch (Photo: Kobi Eliyahu)
As mentioned, despite the difficulties that arose and the lack of agreement on some of the players on the part of the professional team, finally it seems that the problem has been resolved with the expected arrival of Braymo - a player that Maccabi Tel Aviv admitted about a month ago who would not even have come up as an option during the summer.
"There are players who come to the team during the season, and they wouldn't even be considered if we were in the summer," said one of the club's members this morning.
"We have already had seasons where we made compromises in the summer, and we were disappointed. During the season, when the hourglass is ticking, and the alternatives are not at their peak, there are compromises. If Braymo does indeed sign, it will not be because he meets all the required professional qualities, but mainly because he fits the positions, The coach knows him and loves him, and he mentally fits the team."
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Suleiman in Raimo
Maccabi Tel Aviv in basketball