{"id":31412,"date":"2011-09-27T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-27T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/maccabi-electra-tel-avivs-season-is-officially-opened\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T08:39:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T05:39:52","slug":"maccabi-electra-tel-avivs-season-is-officially-opened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/maccabi-electra-tel-avivs-season-is-officially-opened\/","title":{"rendered":"Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv\u2019s Season is Officially Opened"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>By Amy Samin<\/FONT> <BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>The Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv basketball club officially kicked off the new season with a gala press conference at the Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv. The highlight of the event was the revelation that a Hall of Fame would be established in the near future, in honor of the upcoming 80<SUP>th<\/SUP> anniversary of the founding of the club.<\/FONT> <\/P> <P align=center><IFRAME height=330 src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EFhNpI8kXU8\" frameBorder=0 width=425 allowfullscreen><\/IFRAME><\/P> <P align=left><FONT size=2 face=Arial>In attendance at the event were the players, the professional staff, the club management, members of the directorate, representatives of the club\u2019s sponsors, former players, honored guests, and members of the media.<\/FONT> <\/P> <P align=center><IFRAME height=330 src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vfk8IzIzfgk\" frameBorder=0 width=425 allowfullscreen><\/IFRAME><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Following a dinner buffet, the festivities got underway with opening remarks made by the club\u2019s spokesman, Nitzan Feraro, who first introduced those sitting on the stage: club chairman Shimon Mizrahi, head coach David Blatt, and assistant coaches Guy Goodes and Derrick Sharp. Next came the first official presentation of the players of the season, with a special video clip featuring each player, including Alon Stein, who trained with the team last season and now joins the roster.<\/FONT> <BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>In his remarks, <B>Shimon Mizrahi<\/B> said, \u201cDerrick Sharp is sitting here as part of the professional staff, and that is a very important thing for the club, and shows how much of a family Maccabi is. He was a player who gave everything he had to the club and will now continue to do so as an assistant coach.\u201d After his words for the former captain of Maccabi, the chairman addressed the new season: \u201cWe will be playing in three leagues and we will be under a lot of strain. The Euroleague has been strengthened and improved by the addition of many NBA players. It will be a long and exciting season of excellent basketball.\u201d<\/FONT> <\/P> <P align=center><IMG border=1 hspace=0 alt=\"\" align=baseline src=\"https:\/\/www.maccabi.co.il\/mtpic\/20110927%200776.jpg\"><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>The next order of business was the official presentation of Tal Burstein as the new captain of the team. A special presentation of Tal\u2019s career with the club to date was screened; he is now starting his eleventh season with the team.<\/FONT> <BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Former captain and current assistant coach <B>Derrick Sharp<\/B> was asked how he likes his new job. His reply: \u201cI\u2019m having fun. I\u2019m getting experience. It\u2019s a new direction in my life. It was important to me to stay with the club. I\u2019m comfortable with my role and I get help from others.\u201d<\/FONT> <\/P> <P align=center><IFRAME height=330 src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yCkZZbMecC8\" frameBorder=0 width=425 allowfullscreen><\/IFRAME><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>The club also announced some organizational changes in management, the introduction of an official scouting department, the continuation of the partnership with farm team Hapoel Yokneam Megiddo, and the many types of community service projects performed by the organization. Later, Yaki Vadmani, CEO of Electra, Maccabi\u2019s main sponsor, introduced the Electra Bar, a water cooler bearing the Maccabi logo.<\/FONT> <BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>The next speaker was head coach <B>David Blatt<\/B>, who also was honored with a special clip that summarized his achievements last season with Maccabi, as well as those he has earned as head coach of the Russian National Team and other teams. \u201cMaccabi is much more than a team,\u201d the coach said. \u201cThe team\u2019s achievements didn\u2019t just come from nowhere, they came from an enormous and very real sense of responsibility on the part of those who lead the organization: the management and the professional staff, and others who contribute and make sacrifices on behalf of the club. Also of course the players, who invest a great deal and give of themselves both on and off the court.\u201d<\/FONT> <\/P> <P align=center><IFRAME height=330 src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KA6L6xfSpaU\" frameBorder=0 width=425 allowfullscreen><\/IFRAME><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>\u201cThis season, there are high expectations of Maccabi, and I\u2019m happy to say that we have all of the tools and support necessary to succeed. I\u2019m not just talking about playing in three leagues, but also of the opportunity to play high quality basketball in as many games as possible, and to offer our fans good basketball.\u201d Blatt continued, \u201cMaccabi Electra Tel Aviv succeeds because of the people who make up the organization, and I hope we\u2019ll continue with the same sense of responsibility that there has been in recent years.\u201d<\/FONT> <BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>The highlight of the evening was the unveiling of an enormous project involving the long and great history of the organization that will be inaugurated in the near future, and which will take the form of a Hall of Fame in honor of the upcoming 80<SUP>th<\/SUP> anniversary of the founding of the club.<\/FONT><\/P><FONT size=2 face=Arial><\/FONT> <P align=center><IMG border=1 hspace=0 alt=\"\" align=baseline src=\"https:\/\/www.maccabi.co.il\/mtpic\/20110927%200557.jpg\"><\/P> <P align=center><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>Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv officially opened the 2011 \u2013 2012 season with its traditional gala press conference at the Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv.  Plans for a Maccabi Hall of Fame were unveiled. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-31412","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\/31412","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=31412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":496417,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31412\/revisions\/496417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31412"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=31412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}