Sharon Drucker has one very famous brother, and another brother, the youngest of the trio, is completely unknown in our districts, but there is an agreement between Sharon and Raviv that Eliran, a senior employee at Google, is actually the most successful of the trio. Not long ago, this group of brothers went to Athens, and on the flight, as always with Israelis, the passengers were treated to questions about politics, Bibi and what will happen, and they asked Sharon what would happen in basketball. Only Eliran rested peacefully in his seat.
What is it like to be Raviv's brother?
"experience. Look, physically we also become more and more similar over the years, and sometimes people write me things on Twitter that they meant to write to him."
what do you think of him
"I see him as an honest, brave person, whose mind and heart are equal. A guy with a special sense of humor, very creative. He and Eliran are my confidants, and we are very close."
Raviv receives quite a few threats on his life. Do you feel anxious or worried about him?
"There was a period of worry, and there were times when there was also constant guarding around his house. It's not pleasant, he didn't make a story out of it, but still there is a family here. We would get messages from friends and acquaintances like 'take care of your brother'. I don't know where this country is going, and they keep talking about political murder here. It's worrying."
Who is he a fan of in basketball?
"You are the underdog. He loves basketball and loves to play. I remember playing in the neighborhood when we were little. I'm three years older than him, and we also played in Maccabi Pat. There was everything there – fights, beatings, bombs and elbows to the face. We spilled a lot of blood. Even though we love each other, we were always competitive."
And as a coach, what is it like to be Raviv Drucker's brother?
"I eat a lot of shit because of Raviv. I can completely say that there are chairmen of groups who are Bibiists, who rejected my candidacy for their groups, just because I am Raviv's brother. Not that I hide my opinions, but there are those who are satisfied that I am his brother."
I do not believe you.
"Completely. There are times when an audience yells at me, 'I wish you'd die like your brother,' or that Raviv should be fired from Channel 13 like I was fired."
And what do you answer them?
"I live in peace."
I meet Sharon Drucker, the coach of Israel's women's national team, a few days after the team's expulsion from EuroBasket, which was held jointly in Tel Aviv and Slovenia. Three losses to Belgium, Italy and the Czech Republic ended the short episode of the team, and joined a never-ending losing streak – 25 consecutive defeats in the tournament. In fact, the women's team has not won the tournament since 1991 – 32 years ago. Drucker said to the microphones at the end of the game: "I'm glad we participated and saw how it really should look. The girls will take a lot from this. There were expectations, mine included, that we would win and move up, but when I saw the rivalry and the size – I realized that there is still a lot of work to do."
It is not obvious that Drucker, 56, a senior basketball coach here, with 16 teams he has coached, four European title wins, five advances to the Final Four in the local arena and two wins as a coach this season, would take on an ungrateful task in an arena foreign to him – coaching women, who have never experienced until then. But his friend Moshe Weinkranz, head of the women's division in the basketball association, harnessed him to the task, and Sharon picked up the glove.
Women's basketball is something else, says Drucker. Less athletic than the men, no Eli hoops, no dunks and much less one on one. The name of the game is teamwork, and who today is the hottest model on the continent, it is precisely Belgium and its golden generation, which dismantles all its rivals.
The fact that Israel hosted the European Championship guaranteed it automatic participation, because in terms of level, it was not supposed to be there. The actresses loved that someone like Sharon, a serious o'clock among the men, joined them to lend a shoulder: "I'm not an expert in women, I came to them from nowhere, from the side, without prejudices, knowing nothing about them, but I knew how to both compliment and get into them when necessary. I sat for hours with Eli Rabbi who understands everything about women, with Weincrantz, with the manager Alona Haliva, who rules the continent, and we did interviews with the actresses, I went to games and was next to Roy Lazar."
what did you do?
"We started forming a squad, and the union promoted ideas in an excellent way, including the citizenship of Jenny Sims, who played four years in the league. Then we came up with an idea and got help from the FIBA – and we did what they did here with Jack Cohen, and that's how we arranged for Alice Cohen and Alyssa Baron to be considered Israelis. Although our place in the championship was guaranteed, we participated in the qualifiers to see where we were. We won in Sweden and lost 6 in Latvia, both selected Tier A, and another 15th win over Sweden. Then, before the championship, Jennifer Fleischer broke her ankle, and Liron Garzon tore a ligament in the game against Slovakia, and Fleischer, who plays in position 5, and Lior, who is 3- 4, injured. Sims came back from the WNBA and sprained her leg badly. She played the first two games with bandages, and against the Czech Republic she could no longer stand on her feet."
Bottom line, this championship is a disappointment, or have we accepted reality?
"We lack size, power and intensity. The players we played against play continuously in the Euroleague, which is a huge advantage. There are big gaps, but on a given day and without injuries we could win at least one game. There is someone to work with here. Girls like the Garzon sisters, Danielle Cover, Eden Zipel, Gilly Eisner, Eden Rotberg, Daniel Karsh and more, are good material. Against the Czechs, we can win three times in ten games against them, and even though we didn't win, the crowd amazed us and filled the hall three days in a row."
And there's something you can't say. The base of the pyramid in basketball is narrow, because parents are not always enthusiastic about sending their daughters to basketball, and prefer that they go, for example, to volleyball, which is less of a contact game.
"That's what you said, but I must say that there was desire in the 10th grade of the girls. A lot of ambition and a desire to work as much as necessary. There was a desire to receive recognition, because the women's basketball does not receive exposure, and suddenly the girls see their faces in the championship's marketing campaigns on television. But then you get the reality inside. In the junior national teams we are in the first tier, but in the younger age group we still don't have the power and intensity that develops in the older age group, but there is someone to work with."
Drucker is an old horse in the stable here. Arrived with Ra'anana, Upper Galilee, Hapoel Jerusalem and Maccabi Rasheltz to the Final Four. During the Corona season he saved Bnei Herzliya from relegation in an extraordinary season of survival. One day he came to training there, and suddenly he lay down on the floor and collapsed. The diagnosis was Corona and a month's absence from the field. In the European arena His peak achievement was winning the Yolav Cup in 2004 with Hapoel Jerusalem after a brilliant victory over Real Madrid. In 2007, he won the Belgian championship with Ostend, and a year later he took a trophy with it. A year after winning with Jerusalem, he received an offer from the Russian Ural Great, and won the Eurocup Challenge with them. As mentioned, the list of teams is almost endless, and he almost never coached in any team twice. This is how he likes to live, move around, connect with the local community and then continue wandering.
He started the last season in Hapoel Haifa, and despite many good sparks that could have developed into a successful season, he did not finish there, again due to a plague of injuries that broke up his team. He admits that it could be in retrospect that his boss in Haifa, Yuval Rossman, was right that another foreigner is a significant step, but it goes against his whole vision that talks about an Israeli team that is strengthened by foreigners, and not the other way around. He looks at this season, and despite the hoo-ha of the big four – Maccabi and Hapoel Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Holon – Drucker generally liked Barak Peleg's upper Galil, who was once his player: "A lot of teams went to five foreigners, including teams whose trademark There were Israelis – Gilboa Galil, Eilat and Nes Ziona. With all due respect to Speedy Smith or Wade Baldwin, I enjoy watching Roy Huber, Lotan Amsalem, Yahli Melamed or Nimrod Levy. My achievements as a coach were in teams with an Israeli identity, such as Ra'anana and Eilat With Avi Ben Shimol, Idan Zalmanson, Rafi Manko, Yonatan Schuldenbrand and Frederic Bourdion.
In Israeli basketball, if you are not a coach at Maccabi Tel Aviv or in Jerusalem, the concern for livelihood does not go away and you have to wear several hats. Then there is the hat in the women's team, and Drucker is also the assistant of Ariel Beit Lahemi in the men's team. He came as a candidate to coach the team and came for an interview with the heads of the union Amiram Halevi, Yankel'a Ben Shoshan and Amos Frishman. Six years abroad and an in-depth knowledge of Israeli basketball gave him a good starting position, but the choice was in Beit HaLhami.
it's not taken for granted. Usually an assistant coach is someone young, who hasn't done as much mileage as you.
"As soon as it was decided, I said to Ariel – take what you need from me – the experience, my acquaintance with coaches and players, experience in all establishments, the ability to contact the senior coaches – from Toto Messina to Obradovic. I made everything available to him. Ariel and I are friends, and what is important is that we both grew up on the slopes, in Pet and Givat Shmuel. We played against each other, without the aura of stars and without anyone to run us."
It is not obvious that they chose to coach the team two who did not finish a season in their teams in the last season.
"It's beautiful in my eyes that the team was taken by two hungry people who came from the bottom, who went through things in basketball. The fact that Ariel wanted me by his side shows greatness, because usually coaches want an apprentice. A coach with confidence will take someone who can violate him. Look at Finney Gershon, who took David Blatt with him. Also a good example."
Finney Gershon and you are not a love story. You were his assistant at Maccabi Tel Aviv. He thought you were rooting for him.
"If I rowed according to his method, I was supposed to train under him, and that didn't happen. He wasn't there in the end, because we lost the championship to Gilboa. Maccabi had an orderly plan. Finny's interest and mine were shared, and the plan was that I would learn from him for two years and marry him."
In everything to do with the youth teams, which Finney is responsible for in the union – you cannot be. is not that a loss?
"I don't like to return to this story, and I'm sorry that I was dragged into an ugly conversation that descended to an unhealthy level. By the way, Finney is doing an excellent job in the basketball association."
You're speaking?
"We can pass in front of each other like air on the same floor. Too bad, I would like to close this story. You don't have to be friends, but hello hello is fine too."
Have you already missed Maccabi?
"Maybe I missed the train. Maccabi is built differently today, unless I do something unusual in training in Europe. Maccabi and I are good friends. When I coached in Herzliya, at the request of chairman Eldad Akunis, we received Max Heidegger from them, who actually kept us in the league."
You know Oded Ketch. There has been a theory that basketball stars have trouble being great coaches as well, although there are examples that disprove this.
"Kets started with Amit Gal's top roll, and no one thought he would get where he did, but he developed and improved. It is a difficult and thankless profession. You constantly live with the feeling that it will soon be over."
He is divorced from Hadas, who together gave birth to their first daughter Amit, 27, who is a model and a student of communication and marketing at the kibbutzim seminary, and Tomer, 24, a psychology student at the management college in Rishon Lezion. His mother Tzipi, who ran a school in Neve Monson for 20 years and after her retirement earned a doctorate in philosophy and education, would take her grandchildren and fly with them abroad to visit him in the places where he worked. Tomer played and coached at Givatayim in the National League, and his father says of him that he is too team-oriented with his left hand and good shooting: "I always tell him, 'Stop giving to everyone,' but everyone loves him."
8-year-old Yahal is the son of Tzipi Karlik, and due to his young age, Sharon stopped looking for destinations overseas, as he likes. But by and large, adventures it is. For example, in 2011 he received a call from the former manager of Milan, Jean Maria Wicherka, who took over the small Montegrenaro in the Italian first league. Drucker left Aris Thessaloniki precisely because there was no money there, Montegrenaro was on the verge of relegation, and Drucker was called there three rounds to the end. He took PJ Tucker with him from Aris, the same Tucker who led Hapoel Holon to a historic championship three years earlier. What particularly turned him on was that the city was an empire of all the shoe brands there are, and Drucker is known as the Imelda Marcus of basketball here, with hundreds of pairs in his closets: "Every practice they brought me a new pair, the team also had a shoe sponsor. I was crazy about it. In the end, we stayed in the league."
The national team is a part-time job, and in time windows. If you get an offer from abroad, will you go?
"It is something I will consider if there is an opportunity and a good team. I love to train and I don't complain about the profession being unstable. It's not always up to you, and I'm one of those 5% in the world who wake up every morning with a passion for their work."
Meanwhile there are only more foreigners here.
"I don't even go into all these subtleties of the numbers. sucks Look, Hapoel Tel Aviv beat Maccabi in the 38-point derby in Game 2 of the Basket Final. It used to be a big mess, and today it's just another game. We lost a lot of the audience that loved basketball and was connected to our players. Decision. Take a story about Giorgis Barzoukas. In 2017 I went to the King's Cup and met him for lunch. I sat down and told him, 'You're living in the city.' that everyone dreams of being in, but because you don't enjoy the team, you can't enjoy even one percent of the city, and I, who coached Ural Great in Russia and lived there in a gray city called Perm, succeeded and had fun. Such is the life of a basketball coach and remember that Barcelona can too to be a black hole'".
Let's talk about the violence in the stands. What happened in the basket final was system madness. The great Obradovic held a press conference before Partizan won the championship, and said that the fans in Serbia had gone off the rails, and that it was impossible to play a derby in Belgrade.
"It just hurts. Everything here has become disgusting and unappealing to me. How far will the hatred go and where will the border be crossed? I also experienced a derby in Thessaloniki and asked myself how it is related to sports. In the end it does harm to young people, and parents will not send their children. So it's true that it doesn't have to be Belgium, where you clap your hands in defeat and victory and everything is sterile, but as in politics – everyone will have to come down from the trees. Everything is going in bad directions here. I'm going to a tournament abroad, and there on the news there's half an edition talking about the weather and a flower exhibition. Every hour we have different news, crazier than the previous ones. Everything is no longer normal."
© 2024 News In Israel - Israeli News In English. All Rights Reserved.