The Israeli national team will gather next week for the November window of the World Championship qualifiers with quite a few new faces in the squad – and also with a new captain after the retirement of Gal Mekel: Tomer Ginat is expected to be the one to receive the prestigious appointment.
Ginat is only 27 years old, but he is already one of the oldest players in the team, which has gone through a significant upheaval in recent years, and even compared to the squad that played in EuroBasket, since Guy Panini retired from the team, Mekel retired from basketball and Jake Cohen was not invited.
Ginat, who was also the captain of Hapoel Tel Aviv before moving to Paris Metropolitans, started the season in good shape – so far in the league he is scoring 12.3 points per game along with 7.3 rebounds.
Ginat’s first game as captain will be against Slovenia, without Luka Doncic of course, on 14.11 at Drive In. Three days later the team will play in Sweden, where in order to maintain any chance of qualifying for the World Championship – Guy Goodes and the team will have to win twice.
The previous window, which took place before the European Championship, was not good as I remember, with a loss in Finland and an embarrassing home loss to Sweden.