By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net
Almost 15 years passed since the last game in Oded Kattash’s career. The great Israeli point guard was just 25 and half years old when he and Panathinaikos beat Maccabi Tel Aviv in the FIBA EuroLeague final in Thessaloniki and PAOK in the Greek finals. Later that summer, he started feeling pains in the knee – and four years and five operations later, he had to retire.
On Friday the 10th of October – the 10th month of the year – the legendary number 10 turned 40 years old. He won the Israeli championships with Gilboa Galil back in 2010, beating Maccabi in the final, and now he is the new coach of the Yellows’ archrival, Hapoel Tel Aviv.
“I will never get completely over the loss of my playing career,” Kattash admitted in a interview to Arale Weisberg of “Israel Hayom”. “At night, before I fall asleep, I keep on dreaming that I am playing again, I am jealous of my players, and I keep telling them that they have the best job in the world.”
Kattash is still the only Israeli player to win the European trophy with a foreign team, as he did with Panathinaikos in the 1999-2000 season. “This is the most happy and the most sad night in my career,” he said back then, after scoring 17 points against his youth club.
“When we got to the airport in Thessaloniki, on our way back to Athens, there were hundreds of Israeli fans there,” Kattash says. “the management was concerned for my health and wanted to call security, since they could imagine what might happen, but I insisted on going off to the bus. They thought I was crazy. But when we entered the terminal, Maccabi fans lifted me and celebrated with me, This was the greatest moment of my career.”
Weisberg writes that Kattash was a candidate to return to the Greens a year ago as an assistant coach, when they were set to sign Pini Gershon as their head coach. But eventually, they will meet next month at the big clash of Tel Aviv – Oded as the head coach in red and Pini as the assistant of Guy Goodes in yellow.
“Hiring Pini as assistant is unacceptable. It shows that there is no such thing as sports culture in Israel. Pini is like Phil Jackson for Israeli basketball, and nobody in the United States would ever imagine to name Jackson as assistant to anyone. If anyone would have suggested Pini as my assistant, I would be embarrassed. It’s inappropriate.”