{"id":497701,"date":"2013-10-03T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-03T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/maccabi-electra-tel-aviv-officially-opens-2013-14-season\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T08:53:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T05:53:48","slug":"maccabi-electra-tel-aviv-officially-opens-2013-14-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/maccabi-electra-tel-aviv-officially-opens-2013-14-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv Officially Opens 2013-14 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"responsive-video-container\" style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; margin-bottom: 20px;\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EzhB7t30aaI\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">By Amy Samin<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">It&#8217;s official. The Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv basketball club has kicked off the 2013-14 season with their traditional gala season-opening press conference, held in the club&#8217;s magnificent VIP Lounge at Nokia Arena. In attendance were the club&#8217;s management, the professional staff, the players, representatives from the team&#8217;s sponsors, reporters and some long-time fans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">First to speak was the club&#8217;s chairman, Mr. Shimon Mizrahi: &#8220;We have some new players on the team who need to get to know one another. Sofo (Schortsanitis) has returned to us, and he knows the club very well. We now have a former Euroleague rival with us, Joe Ingles. We worked hard, and successfully, to keep the core of last year&#8217;s team. David Blu will be arriving in Israel tomorrow and will take part in the team&#8217;s practices. Nikola Vuj?i? (the new team manager) has made a very smooth adjustment to his role with the team and is doing a great job.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">Afterwards, head coach David Blatt addressed the gathering: &#8220;We did a thorough job this summer of recognizing the things we needed to do to improve the team and the way in which we wanted to start the present season. We tried to strengthen the roster both professionally and in the details wherever we saw the need. We broadened the roster with quality players and we succeeded in keeping players that we really wanted in the system, and in returning those we wanted back. We tried to build a team with both character and ability, so that we can help them improve the way we have other players in the past, so that the team can compete for every possible title.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">&#8220;We had a bit of trouble in the training camp due to the late arrival of players who took part in the EuroBasket competition, and due to injuries, but that is to be expected at the start of a new season. I&#8217;m happy to say that this year you are going to see a very strong Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv team. I don&#8217;t think we&#8217;re going into this season with any sense of limitations in terms of ability. We are teaching excellence in all that we do, and it is certainly possible that we will reach the final of the Euroleague Final Four. Will it come easily and without any obstacles? We believe so, and we are preparing ourselves for that possibility.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">&#8220;Objectively, Blu&#8217;s situation is not ideal, but we talked to him this summer and the idea came up and at that point in time he wasn&#8217;t interested.\u00a0 Later he approached us with the idea of returning and we agreed that he should come so we could test his game readiness. I&#8217;m not sure he will immediately go back to being the player he was a year and a few months ago, but in time he could add several parameters that could change a good team to something better. We will try to see how we can integrate him.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">&#8220;We&#8217;ll take a look at Blu and see what kind of shape he&#8217;s in, and then we&#8217;ll make a decision,&#8221; added one of the owners, Shai Recanati. In answer to a question about former Maccabi forward Lior Eliyahu, Recanati said, &#8220;Lior was offered a contract with Maccabi which he refused.&#8221; Regarding questions about the team&#8217;s budget and the lack of a superstar, the owner stated: &#8220;Our budget is the same as it was and it isn&#8217;t going to change. The players we have chosen are our stars, and we believe they are the ones who will lead us.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">Another of the owners, David Federman, suggested to the professional staff that they show the new team film of Maccabi&#8217;s victory in the 2004 Euroleague Final, which was held in Tel Aviv. He added, &#8220;I am very proud of the fact that 8 of our players are originally from the United States. America is one of the best things that has happened to this country of ours. We have a very good team, but the players need to understand that this is not just another basketball team. Sofo knows this very well: here in Maccabi, we win with heart. No one here wins all by himself.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maccabi electra Tel Aviv held their traditional gala season-opening press conference today, in the club&#8217;s VIP Lounge at Nokia Arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":497699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-497701","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\/497701","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=497701"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":497703,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497701\/revisions\/497703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497701"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=497701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}