System Man
Doubt if too Avi Even He believed, a year ago, let’s say, that one day he would be the head coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv. That is, a coach on his own – no band-aid, no plugging holes and no substitute for the regular coach – as he has done in a number of cases in the past. Tonight (Thursday), against zero Anadolu, Even will go up to his debut game in the Euroleague in the new status – and perhaps, precisely from the least expected place, Maccabi Tel Aviv will find the man who will change its season.
Even is an almost completely inexperienced coach, but within Maccabi Tel Aviv he is one of the most significant figures – he has been in the system for no less than 16 years. Even is the main scout and head of the player development team, and he is directly involved in growing, developing and promoting The Israeli players over the years, from hours upon hours of personal training with the young Idan Zalmanson and Nimrod Levy, through the polishing of Yuval Sussman to the signing of Danny Abdia on a long-term contract, years before he left for the NBA and locating Max Heidegger and Sandy Cohen.
Avi Even is first and foremost an editor, and due to his role – he has worked closely with all the coaching staff in recent years and has been involved in a significant part of the professional decisions, both small and large.
So Avi Even definitely has many rights in Maccabi Tel Aviv. The question is how did he find himself in one of the most difficult jobs in Israeli sports?
When Katsch said no
To answer this question, one has to go back to last week. After the relegation in the semi-finals of the State Cup – the third derby loss in two months – it was clear to the Maccabi management that the Yannis Sapropoulos era was over. Regardless of the supply in the market, which was scarce even during the eight-game losing streak in the Euroleague, the Yellows had no choice but to make a shock. They realized that change must come, despite the fact that they do not really have a replacement in hand.
The only coach who came into consideration for Maccabi was Oded Katash. The night Potter Yannis met with him Ami Bitton and Nikola Vujicic, and the details are already clear today: the offer placed on Katsch’s desk was only for four months, until the end of the season, which the professional manager of Gilboa / Galil rejected.
On the one hand, it is possible to raise an eyebrow in light of the Yellows’ offer, since they too were (and still are) aware that the supply is scarce, and that it is likely that Katsch will refuse to sign without commitment for next season. But on the other hand, Maccabi did not want to commit to the next season at the contract level, especially in light of the fact that the options in the summer will be much more diverse, and names like Andrea Trinkieri and Xavi Pasqual may be on the shelf. “What would we do if the connection was not good, if Oded was not successful?”, Maccabi said. “We wanted to see how he copes in the Euroleague, get to the end of the season and then make a decision.”
So Katsch, who was the only option of a senior and available coach, refused – and Maccabi Tel Aviv found itself at a crossroads. Yannis, the previous foreign coaches who came during the season (Jean Tabac, Ainers in Gatzkis) were not a great success, to say the least. Has become the preferred option.
“In the end, we put all the considerations on the scales,” Maccabi said. “On the one hand there are vacant coaches, not too high caliber, who can bring them to a new situation and a team that is in a very deep crisis. On the other hand there is my father’s inexperience as a coach, but once you change coaches in the middle of the season “It’s a completely new coach, probably at this stage of the season, it’s difficult.”
Will continue to change?
And when Maccabi Tel Aviv did put all the considerations on the scales, the decision to go for Avi Even was made. Although he has never trained at these levels, or even close to it, seeing Maccabi Tel Aviv has many other advantages: he does not have to integrate, learn and understand who is against whom; there is no player who does not know him, from personal training or authority training; He was responsible for bringing his two assistants to the system today, Noam Levy and Doron Perkins; he knows well, probably most of all on the professional avenue, the DNA of the club; and perhaps most importantly, he is a basketball man.
Even Hari has been a coach before. He moved to the youth department of Maccabi Tel Aviv and from there continued to the cadet team. He was on the professional team as an assistant coach under Pini Gershon, David Blatt and Zvika Sharaf before moving to the position he held until last week in the player development department. To him in the next three months, but the basis exists.
Already in the first game, against Hapoel Eilat, Even made a number of changes compared to the era of Sapropolus, which included, among others, fives with three guards (Keenan Evans, John Dibertolomeo and Scotty Wilbkin) and the team of Ante Zizic alongside Jaylen Reynolds for no minutes Few. At least in Eilat it succeeded with a 66:77 victory, tonight the opponent will be much better, and it will be interesting to see if Even introduces further innovations in one of the toughest halls in Europe. By the way, this is exactly the same hall where Yannis also made his Euroleague debut as a Maccabi Tel Aviv coach.
Almost absurdly, you could say that Avi Even got into a situation where he really has nothing to lose. If Maccabi Tel Aviv ends the season out of the top eight in the Euroleague or even without a championship, it probably will not be on him, and in that case he will return to his normal role in the summer. But if he succeeds, go know, maybe Maccabi Tel Aviv will .
