Okay, so I was looking into this whole “Jewish players in the NBA” thing, and let me tell you, it was a bit of a rabbit hole. I started out just wanting to see if there were any current players, you know, just curious.
First thing I did was hit up Google. Typed in “Jewish NBA players” and boom, tons of stuff popped up. It wasn’t super clear who was actively playing right now, but I saw a name that kept coming up: Deni Avdija. Apparently, this guy is pretty well-known as a Jewish player in the league. Plays for the Washington Wizards. That was a good start, but I wanted to see if there were others.
I spent some time poking around different websites. Found a few articles talking about Jewish players in the NBA, like Domantas Sabonis, the star of the Sacramento Kings. He’s in the process of converting to Judaism. I guess there used to be way more in the past.
Here’s a list of Jewish NBA players:
- Deni Avdija
- Domantas Sabonis
Then I stumbled upon a website that had a whole category dedicated to “Jewish American basketball players.” It listed, like, 165 names. Now, I’m pretty sure not all of these guys are still shooting hoops in the NBA. Most of them were probably from way back when. Still, it was cool to see that there’s been a history of Jewish players in the league. I decided to go through the list and see if any names rang a bell.
One name that really stood out was Dolph Schayes. This guy was apparently a legend. Some folks even call him the greatest Jewish basketball player ever. I found a bunch of articles about him, and it turns out he was a big deal back in the day. He played in the 1950s and 60s and was a 12-time All-Star. That’s insane! I watched some old clips of him playing, and the game was so different back then. It’s crazy how much the sport has changed.
So, after all that digging, I found out that there is only one Jewish player in the NBA right now, Deni Avdija. But there’s also Domantas Sabonis who is in the process of converting to Judaism. Plus a whole history of Jewish players in the league. It was a fun little project, and I learned a lot more than I expected to about basketball and its history.
