When Maccabi Tel Aviv went to Italy last Monday for a pair of Euroleague games, most of the team’s fans, the media and the yellow team understood the significance of the coming days for the future of the team’s coach, Oded Ketch. You don’t have to be a great basketball genius or close to the management of the yellows to understand that two more away losses, against two teams in bad times, will probably lead to the end of the Israeli’s path on the lines.
In the end, after a tough battle against a bruised and injured Milan, Maccabi managed to get their first away win of the season in the biggest factory on the continent and settle for Atura Messina’s dangerous ninth loss in a row (and the last in a row after the victory over the star last night). The meaning of the victory, first and foremost, will buy Ketch at least another week on the lines in Yad Eliyahu and us the time to discuss an important issue.
Right after the end of a disappointing away loss to Bayern Munich two weeks ago, the moment came exactly when the first domino stone fell, the end of which is almost always known in advance. The yellows fell for the first time this season to a negative balance in the Euroleague and it was announced that the club’s management is considering a shake-up in the coach’s position. Today Maccabi is indeed standing on a positive balance sheet again (6:7) but it does not seem that this really strengthened the position of the coach with the sword around his neck.
In order to understand whether there is any justification for talking about the unstable status of the coach already at this stage and in light of the results he has achieved so far, we have collected a number of advantages and disadvantages in Maccabi Tel Aviv model 2022/23. Just before we start, we said that in the comparisons we made, we referred to the Yellows within the Euroleague, since the start of the season in the league is not what brought the coach’s status to the agenda.
Another thing that is important to note is that despite the fact that the budgets of all the Euroleague teams are not precisely known at the start of the season, according to the reports that did arrive, the Yellows increased the budget but remained in a fairly similar place in relation to the other teams of the factory – between places 8 and 10.
To Ketch’s credit
Let’s start with the simplest claim and, for the most part, also the most important – Test result. When you look at the season openings of the coaches at Maccabi Tel Aviv since the 2016/17 season, when the league system began in the EuroLeague, there was no coach who showed similar results for the yellows until this stage of the season and his status was as uncertain as Ketch’s. The list:
2022/23 – Oded Ketch – 6:7 positive
2021/22 – Yanis Spropoulos – 6:7 positive
2020/21 – Yanis Spropoulos – 8:5 negative
2019/20 – Yannis Sprouplus – 4:9 positive
2018/19 – Nevan Spahia – was fired when he was down 6:1
2017/18 – Nevan Spahia – 6:7 positive
2016/17 – Erez Edelstein – fired when he was 2:0 down
As you can see, since the 2016/17 season, except for the Corona season which was the best of the Yellows since the last win, Ketch does not fall due to any record achieved by another coach at this stage of the season and his team is in the playoff picture at this stage. The only dismissals that reached this stage in the previous seasons were Spahia’s after the worst start in the history of the yellows in the factory and the surprising and quick departure from Erez Edelstein.
The numbers are on the attack
Here too, as in the result test, the numbers speak for themselves – Maccabi Tel Aviv of the 22/23 season scores an average of 82.2 points per evening. Until the current season, since the 2016/17 season, at this stage of the season only in the fondly remembered Corona season did the yellows put up a better average than this (86.4). The other numbers of the yellows in recent years are much lower than what the yellow attack is scoring these days, as you can see here (the average until the end of round 13 of that season):
2022/23- 82.2 points on average
2021/22- 78.4 points on average
2020/21- 78.5 points on average
2019/20- 86.4 points on average
2018/19- 79.5 points on average
2017/18- 79.7 points on average
2016/17- 79.4 points on average
Ketch’s opponents will rightly say (we’ll get to that later) that despite the numbers, the basketball of the Yellows this season is far from impressive and that Ketch has a particularly talented offensive staff.
The other side of the argument and another point of merit in Ketch’s favor this season is the strengthening of the Euroleague. It’s true, the Maccabi Tel Aviv squad looks flashier at the start of the current season than we’ve gotten used to in recent years, but it’s important to remember that not only the Yellows got stronger with impressive names, but also teams that are considered smaller than Maccabi made big signings (Vildoza and maybe even Campaso for Kochav, Henry for Baskonia, De Colo for Villerban, Bacon to Panathinaikos).
Beyond that, it seems that this season’s EuroLeague is experiencing an upswing in regards to the high ability of the teams at both ends of the table (and ask Villervan who beat Barcelona and Olympiakos this week), and the amount of talent that the top six in the factory at Maccabi Tel Aviv can only dream of (Fenerbahce, Olympiakos, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Monaco and Andolo Eps).
to Ketch’s detriment
Just doesn’t look good
One should not doubt the numbers and the test of the result, but at the same time one cannot argue with what our eyes see – Maccabi Tel Aviv Model 2022/23 does not look or play like a good basketball team. Until the last game on Tuesday, the Yellows did not manage to win a single away game and continued their bad habit Maccabi manages to bring results only at home.
If that’s not enough, even in a considerable part of the yellow home games, they are far from presenting convincing basketball that makes the people sitting in the hall very happy. Most of Maccabi’s best minutes this season at the Hall came thanks to a great fighting game (Sorkin, Jondi and Colson) or great individual talent (Lorenzo and Baldwin), less to quality basketball.
When it comes to the away games, all of the yellows’ problems surface and the solutions that work at home are much more difficult to implement without the crowd. In the best case it develops into a relatively close game where Maccabi stays close like against Partizan and the Red Star, at worst into defeats or humiliations like against Fenerbahce, Baskonia and Bayern.
An important point to note regarding the basketball we see on the floor concerns the fact that Oded Ketch built the team with his own hands. He got almost everything he wanted and built the team in his image so that everyone would conform to his “catchy” method. So far, as you have already understood, it is far from looking like something to be proud of and the two worst things about the whole thing are that there is no improvement graph, as well as problems with certain players in the dressing room that he himself created.
protection
If on the one hand we looked at the numbers in the attack in a positive light, the defense of the yellows is bad, even very bad, both in terms of numbers and to the seeing eyes of the spectators. This season’s Maccabi Tel Aviv is one of the five weakest defensive teams in the factory so far, conceding an average of 82.3 points per evening. In recent years, at least in the ones Yanis Spropoulos has been on the lines, it hasn’t even been close (after 13 games each season):
2022/23- 82.3 points on average
2021/22- 76.5 points on average
2020/21- 78.1 points on average
2019/20- 74.8 points on average
2018/19- 80.9 points on average
2017/18- 80.8 points on average
2016/17- 82.3 points on average
From the offensive rebound of the opponent, in which Maccabi Tel Aviv is the worst team in the factory with numbers not seen in the Euroleague since the 15/16 season, through bad personal defense, poor handling of blocks and broken color to second place from the end in the percentage of the opponent from the field – the yellows present a catastrophic defensive game, which, perhaps, Only maybe settled down a little in the last two games (69.5 average) against comfortable opponents.
The full picture is clear – as far as the test of the result is concerned, Oded Ketch does not deserve to be in a situation where he is fighting for his life in the team in every game, but on the other hand, it is simply impossible to ignore the mediocre basketball played by his team so far. In my opinion, the first stone in the domino fell a little too soon, and from the moment it happened, all the more so in a club as stressed as Maccabi Tel Aviv, only a radical change will prevent the expected end.
