His bio says he’s now a college coach in Atlanta, Georgia.

He was a great player for a number of years, was even on the national squad.

You’re 100% right. I’m wrong. Won’t happen again. Sorry. Let’s move on.

Just…ummmm….keep in mind Burstein torn his achilles tendon 10 minutes before Parker finished his career in Maccabi (last quarter of finals game), and last season hardly played because of another not-very-friendly injury. Hmmmm…. I think that would qualify as a decent excuse to why he hasn’t been the same player since AP left… I would have mentioned the seasons he played for Maccabi when Parker wasn’t around but those were pineapples, and it’s not good to mix so many fruits.

Damn. Now I’m hungry.

If other euroleague teams can teach athletes the fundamentals than why can’t maccabi. If I can see maccabi’s inabilities than anyone is the basketball world can.

Players surely develop in Maccabi. Anthony Parker arrived there from CBA no NBA team wants to touch and when he left…well, u know. Maceo Baston was nothing more than a nice foreigner in a mid-level team in the ACB before he came to Maccabi. Nate Huffman was another good center in ACB that no1 there was really fighting for and left Maccabi as the best center in Europe. Nikola Vujcic as well left Maccabi much better.than he arrived. Tal Burstein surely was tons better b4 the injury than he was at 20 when he came to Maccabi.

If you expect all players to be perfect, then… we have a totally diff approach. So Lior can’t play D.

Is that really the biggest problem of Maccabi nowadays?

On a given night anything can happen. This Maccabi have some issues, and against smart and athletic enough team they won’t have an easy life. It will depend A LOT on how their chemistry would mold. If they would be able to bring back the intimidation Israeli teams used to have when facing Maccabi, something that was lost all across the league the past season and often made a difference when it was present. As a Jerusalem fan you surely remember the games your team lost to Maccabi already in the Kastel…

Hapoel J, Bnei and Haifa can certainly be a threat on a given night. I really like Goodes as a coach, and he formed a good team (with some big minuses but I trust on him to hide them well), Haifa made a great scouting job with their signings – really nice foreigners and same goes for Bnei… but with them it’s anything but news. They have been doing that for several years now.

Bottom line…is how much confidence Maccabi will get and as a result of that how much intimidating they would be.

Maccabi chose not to invest huge money in the coaching staff. They won’t sign big name coaches for over 1 mil USD. Pini isn’t an option and they would have taken Blatt but couldn’t compete with the huge offer he had in Moscow. I can understand why they don’t want to sign a big time coach and spend tons of money on one. Barcelona and Real are sick of paying these coaches huge money, and see who they appointed as coaches… Tau took Spahija after he was kicked from Maccabi… and now went back to the roots with Dusko. It’s not only Maccabi that avoids paying coaches huge money. And if it’s not a big name coach then, with all due respect, what’s the difference between Efi/Drucker and…I don’t know…Anzulovic? Believe me…Maccabi could got tons of coaches from the “2nd level”. I wouldn’t prefer 95% of them over Effi.

Lior was never a homegrown player of Maccabi… he grew up in Galil and as a junior in Ramat Gan. He came to Maccabi when he was already 21, so why is it Maccabi’s fault he doesn’t have the defensive fundamentals? Maccabi isn’t a basketball school…they are a big club that doesn’t put its money on developing talents, but on picking the best ones from all over the country. Sometimes, like Halperin, Kattash and Casspi – they grew up in Maccabi. Others like Shefer, Shelef, Saffar, Eliyahu and so on they grew up in other clubs.

The problem I have with the it’s Lior Eliyahu’s fault that he can’t play defense is that he’s not the only homegrown maccabi player that has that problem. Every homegrown player in maccabi seems to have a problem with the basics. There’s a point where the maccabi organization needs to be held accountable for not teaching the basics. I think Lior Eliyahu’s defense would be fine if he was played for a team that could teach him the fundamentals.