{"id":31293,"date":"2011-08-25T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-25T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/its-official-jordan-farmar-plays-for-maccabi\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T08:39:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T05:39:23","slug":"its-official-jordan-farmar-plays-for-maccabi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/its-official-jordan-farmar-plays-for-maccabi\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Official: Jordan Farmar Plays for Maccabi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>By Amy Samin<\/FONT> <\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>With great pride, Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv presented its newest acquisition, Jewish NBA star <B>Jordan Farmar <\/B>of the New Jersey Nets, at a celebratory press conference held Thursday evening at Nokia Arena. Farmar will play for Maccabi for as long as the NBA lockout lasts. Earlier on Thursday, Farmar was welcomed to Israel by dozens of fans at Ben Gurion Airport. Joining Farmar at the press conference were club chairman Shimon Mizrahi, and one of the team\u2019s owners, David Federman. Also present were the remaining members of the directorate and assistant coaches Guy Goodes and Derrick Sharp.<\/FONT> <\/P> <P align=center><IFRAME height=345 src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0qrPdObeCXQ\" frameBorder=0 width=420 allowfullscreen><\/IFRAME><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Maccabi\u2019s head coach David Blatt was unable to attend the press conference, and sent his good wishes by video: \u201cFirst of all, I want to say \u2018welcome\u2019 to Jordan, for joining the Maccabi family. The great part of the story is that Jordan wanted to come, and we wanted him. It was really a decision of the heart as opposed to a professional matter\u2026Jordan is one of the best and most exciting, and I believe one of the most special, guards that have come to Israel in a long, long time\u2026.I\u2019m looking forward to coaching Jordan, I\u2019m looking forward to seeing him work with all of our good players, to help us continue to be successful, to experience his character and his behavior as a professional and an athlete. It\u2019s going to be fun and I hope he\u2019ll be with us for a long time.\u201d<\/FONT> <BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>When asked about the welcome he received at the airport, Farmar responded, \u201cTo get that warm reception when I landed was pretty special. I\u2019m here to do whatever I can to help the team to win and improve. I waited a long time to come to Israel.\u201d <\/FONT><\/P> <P align=center><IMG border=1 hspace=0 alt=\"\" align=baseline src=\"https:\/\/www.maccabi.co.il\/mtpic\/20110825%200086.jpg\"><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>When asked how he would handle the European style of basketball, Farmar replied, \u201cI think the style of play will fit me very well. I\u2019ve been taught to play basketball the right way, and to respect the game. My skill set will allow me to play in any system for any style of coach.\u201d And as for the infamous NBA out clause in his contract: \u201cIn terms of leaving in the middle of the season, it\u2019s not something I\u2019m looking forward to. But there\u2019s a business aspect, and part of my contract is that once the NBA lockout is over, I\u2019m going to have to go back.\u201d About the likelihood of his signing a long-term contract with Maccabi one day, Farmar said, \u201cRight now I have a contract back in America that I have to go back to when the situation resolves itself. One day, when I\u2019m a free agent, who knows? I\u2019m definitely not opposed to it, I\u2019d like to see what all of my options are out there. I feel very welcome and a part of this family right now, so I think it\u2019s definitely a step in the right direction.\u201d<\/FONT> <BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Another question Farmar was asked was whether he thought Maccabi might be able to win the Euroleague championship now that he is on the team. The point guard responded: \u201cI hope so. That\u2019s what I\u2019m here for. I try to win every time I step on the floor. Hopefully, I\u2019ll be here long enough so that I\u2019m a part of it until the end, but if not I wish them the best and I think that our experience together will help the team grow, hopefully in a positive direction.\u201d Farmar was asked to offer tips to his teammates regarding playing an average of three games per week. The five-year NBA veteran had this to say, \u201cIt\u2019s about being ready to play the game: taking care of your body, taking your job seriously, and just being prepared to play.\u201d<\/FONT><\/P> <P align=center><IFRAME height=330 src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/atL4utRHFLY\" frameBorder=0 width=425 allowfullscreen><\/IFRAME><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Club chairman <B>Shimon Mizrahi<\/B> turned to Farmar in front of the journalists and said, \u201cI hope you will stay with us for a long time.\u201d Mizrahi went on to say, \u201cWe had many conversations with players, but the negotiations with Jordan were very short, because he wanted to come to us and we wanted him to come. After he signed with us, we got many requests from other NBA players but one Jordan is enough for us.\u201d<\/FONT> <BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Club management also announced the addition of <B>Dr. Guy Morag<\/B> to the staff of team doctors. Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv would like to thank Dr. Nathan Serbu for his many years of faithful service as a Maccabi team doctor.<\/FONT> <\/P> <P align=center><IMG border=1 hspace=0 alt=\"\" align=baseline src=\"https:\/\/www.maccabi.co.il\/mtpic\/20110825%200147.jpg\"><BR><\/P> <P><A href=\"https:\/\/www.samintranslations.com\/\" target=_blank><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><U>www.samintranslations.com<\/U><\/FONT><\/A><FONT size=2 face=Arial> <\/FONT><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NBA star Jordan Farmar was officially introduced to the media as a player for Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv in a celebratory press conference held at Nokia Arena on Thursday evening.  \u201cI want Maccabi to win the Euroleague championship, even without me.\u201d  Coach Blatt sent his welcoming message via video.  Maccabi also added a new physician to the team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-31293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-54"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":496325,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31293\/revisions\/496325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31293"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=31293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}