By Amy Samin
Orr Leumi (18, 6’4”), who just celebrated his birthday last week, has joined the expanded roster of Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv. The young guard grew up in the Maccabi Tel Aviv youth department, starting at age 10. He also played for two seasons for Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, NV.
Leumi was captain of Israel’s U-18 National Team and contributed 10 points and 3.8 rebounds at the U-18 Euro Championships D-B that took place last summer in Sofia, Bulgaria. Leumi, who plays for Ironi Ramat Gan will, under the dual card system, also play for Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv this season, as does Ben Altit. Leumi and Altit will both appear on the roster for tonight’s game against Hapoel Jerusalem.
Leumi will be replacing Idan Zalmanson on Maccabi’s roster. Idan is one of the young players in whom Maccabi has invested many resources, and he has great potential for the future. Due to personnel changes that have taken place among the big men in Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv’s roster since the start of the season, we came to realize that it would be preferable for Idan to get real playing time on one of the other teams in the Israeli Premier League. We very much hope that will be the case for him at Bnei Herzliya, where he can improve and gain experience until such time as he can rejoin Maccabi’s roster in the future.