Derrick Sharp

Derrick Sharp
Player information
Full name	Derrick Lanorris Sharp
birthday	October 5, 1971 (48 years and 332 days)
place of birth	Orlando , Florida , USA
size	183 cm
position	Point guard
college	South Florida
Clubs as active
1989-1991 Brevard CC Titans (NJCAA) 1991-1993 South Florida Bulls ( NCAA ) 1993-1994 Maccabi Hadera 1994-1996 Hapoel Migdal haEmek 1996-2011 Maccabi Tel Aviv
National team
2000-2003	Israel
Clubs as coaches
2011–2013 Maccabi Tel Aviv ( AC )

Derrick Lanorris Sharp ( Hebrew דריק שארפ; Born October 5, 1971 in Orlando , Florida ) is a retired American - Israeli basketball player . After studying in his native country, Sharp turned professional in Israel and after three years switched to Israeli record champions Maccabi Tel Aviv, for whom he played for the next 15 years before ending his active career at the age of 39. During this time he became one of the most distinguished players in the rich history of the team and won three " Triple Crown " from a national double with championship and cup competition as well as winning the highest-ranking European club competition. In addition, Sharp acquired Israeli citizenship and became a national player in his adopted country, for which he took part in two European Championship finals . After his active career, Sharp was an assistant coach at Maccabi Tel Aviv for two years .

Career

After graduating from high school, Sharp began studying at a community college in Brevard County, east of his hometown of Orlando. There Sharp played from 1989 on for the university team Titans in the "National Junior Collegiate Athletic Association" (NJCAA). After two years he continued his studies at the University of South Florida in Tampa . There he played basketball in what was then the Metro Conference , a predecessor of Conference USA , the NCAA Division I for the college team Bulls , in which Gary Alexander and Chucky Atkins were also among his teammates for a time. In the first year of Sharp you reached the national NCAA finals in 1992 , in which you lost in the first round to the favored Hoyas of Georgetown University . After one could not qualify for a nationwide postseason tournament in 1993 , Sharp's college career was over after a total of four seasons.

After Sharp was not selected in the NBA Draft in 1993 by a club in the highest endowed professional league NBA , Sharp went to Israel like his former teammate Gary Alexander, who was briefly under contract with the Miami Heat in 1993 , where he got his first professional contract signed. In the first division relegated Maccabi from Hadera , he replaced his compatriot David Blatt , who had ended his active career with this club the previous season, in the point guard position . The return to the first class did not succeed at first, so that Sharp switched to league rivals Maccabi from Migdal HaEmek for the following season . Even with this club Sharp did not succeed in the promotion to the top division Ligat ha'Al , but after Sharp had also acquired Israeli citizenship after a marriage, the three-time top scorer of the Israeli second division was particularly sought after by the top division clubs. Record champions Maccabi Tel Aviv were finally able to sign Sharp in 1996.

In the 1996/97 season Maccabi defended his Israeli championship title and regularly won the double from championship and cup competition in the following seasons. Only in the FIBA European Champions Cup was Maccabi unable to follow up on earlier successes when the competition was won twice in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the 1999/2000 season they finally moved back to the Final Four tournament of the highest-ranking European competition after a nine-year break under coach Pini Gershon . In the final game of the competition they lost to Panathinaikos Athens 67:73. Ironically, Maccabi's long-time player Oded Kattash made a significant contribution to the Greeks' final success with 17 points. For the following 2000/01 season, the European Cup competition split, as leading teams, especially from Spain and Italy, joined forces in the ULEB through their league organizations and started their own competition with the ULEB Euroleague . In addition to defending champion Panathinaikos, Maccabi initially remained loyal to the FIBA Europa competition , which however had to be renamed the Suproleague . In a new edition of the final from the previous year, Panathinaikos could be defeated this time with 81:67 and for the first time in 20 years they won the European Cup at its last edition under the direction of FIBA. The two competitions were then reunited under the umbrella of the ULEB and Gershon initially handed responsibility to his previous assistant, David Blatt. At the 2001 European Basketball Championship , Sharp was represented for the first time in a final squad of the Israeli national team. However, there was only one victory over Ukraine and Israel failed in an elimination match against Spain to advance and qualify for the World Cup in Sharp's native country.

In the semifinals of the ULEB Euroleague 2001/02 Maccabi and Panathinaikos faced each other again, the latter again having the better end this time and winning the competition in the final against the ULEB defending champion Kinder Bologna . In the following season Maccabi failed in the group stage of the round of 16 at Benetton Treviso to return to the Final Four. Coach Blatt had to move back into the second row and Gershon returned to the sidelines. At the European Championship finals in Sweden in 2003 , Israel survived the elimination game and moved into the quarter-finals, in which they were defeated by the later European runner-up, Spain . This meant that qualification for the Olympic Games was a thing of the past, as only the medal winners were able to participate. Israel finished in seventh place in the end and Sharp, who was 32 at the time, did not participate in any further finals for the national team. In the round of 16 group stage of the ULEB Euroleague 2003/04 Maccabi Tel Aviv faced Žalgiris Kaunas two seconds before the end of regular time before a home defeat and elimination from the competition, as the Lithuanian Giedrius Gustas in a three-point lead for Kaunas two Couldn't convert free throws. Because a Kaunas player moved too early, play resumed with a throw-in under Maccabi's basket. Maccabi continued the game with a long throw into the front of the field, reminiscent of the Soviets' last basketball success in the infamous 1972 Olympic final . Sharp caught the ball and, after dribbling , threw the ball into the basket from behind the three-point line with a " buzzer beater " to equalize the game. In extra time Maccabi was able to win the game and thus paved the way for winning the competition, when in the final in front of their own audience Skipper Bologna was broken up with the highest point difference in a ULEB Euroleague final game 118-74. But even years later, Sharp was constantly asked about this basketball success to compensate for the game against Kaunas, which paved the way to the title, and was classified by individual commentators as the most remarkable moment in Israeli sports history in the first decade of the new millennium. In the following season 2004/05 Maccabi beat Panathinaikos again in the semifinals and was able to defend the title in the final against TAU Cerámica , who had defeated the hosts PBK CSKA Moscow in the semifinals . This made it the first and until 2013 only defending champion in the ULEB Euroleague to succeed. In October 2005 Maccabi achieved another historic success when they became the first European team to defeat an NBA team with the Toronto Raptors in their own hall in a preseason game . In the following ULEB Euroleague 2005/06 , Maccabi reached the final again after defeating TAU Cerámica in the semifinals, but this time the defending champion CSKA Moscow was defeated in Prague.

After the final defeat, Pini Gershon moved to Olympiacos Piraeus and the following coaches Maccabis were not spoiled by the success, so that there were several coach changes in the following two years. In the ULEB Euroleague competitions, Maccabi was defeated by CSKA, once by the defending champion in the quarter-finals in 2007 and once in the final in 2008 , with which ZSKA took back the title. After Maccabi was unable to defend the title in the national cup competition in 2007, they not only failed to win the cup title in 2008, but surprisingly also lost the national championship final against Hapoel Holon . In November 2008 Gershon was then brought back to Maccabi, but the team not only missed the title in the national cup competition, but was eliminated for the first time in six years in the group stage of the Euroleague knockout round. The game shares of the now 37-year-old Sharp had fallen at Maccabi under an average of ten minutes playing time in Euroleague games. At the end of the season you could save the season when you could get back the championship title. In the following Euroleague season they moved back into the quarter-finals, in which they were favored and with home rights in the play-off series were nevertheless defeated by KK Partizan Belgrade . The interim title in the cup competition could no longer save the season after losing again in the championship final. Gershon had to resign and his former assistant David Blatt was brought back and took over again.

Although Sharp only had short appearances in international games in the 2009/10 season, sheet initially did not want to do without the experienced point guard in the 2010/11 season. His game shares did not increase, but the team remained very sovereign in national competitions and only lost one game of the season. In the ULEB Euroleague 2010/11 , too, it was enough to make it to the final in Barcelona, ​​where Panathinaikos was again the opponent. The Greeks were able to regain the title with a 78:70 final victory. In his seventh Euroleague final, including the previous FIBA ​​competitions, the 39-year-old Sharp was awarded another half a minute in the final. At the end of the season Sharp resigned from the field and finally moved to the sidelines, where he assisted sheet. After they failed in the quarterfinals of the ULEB Euroleague 2011/12 to defending champion Panathinaikos, in the same round against Real Madrid one year later they ended up in three games. In the national championship they even had to admit defeat to Maccabi Haifa in the 2013 final . After the end of the 2012/13 season, Sharp finally announced that he would be returning to his native country.

Web links

Commons : Derrick Sharp  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• SHARP, DERRICK - Statistics on the websites of the ULEB ( English )
• Derrick Lanorris SHARP (ISR) - Overview of participation in FIBA tournaments (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Amy Samin: After 17 Years: Derrick Sharp Leaves Maccabi. Maccabi Tel Aviv , August 1, 2013, accessed on May 27, 2014 (English, media information). 
2. ↑ The Euroleague History Archive - Thessaloniki 2000: Panathinaikos is back. (No longer available online.) ULEB , archived from the original on October 8, 2014 ; accessed on May 27, 2014 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ One shot that changed Euroleague history. YouTube , accessed on May 29, 2014 ( ULEB upload of April 8, 2014). 
4. ^ Tribute to Derrick Sharp. YouTube , accessed on May 27, 2014 ( ULEB upload of July 21, 2011). 
5. ↑ The Euroleague History Archive - Tel Aviv 2004: Maccabi breaks all records! ULEB , accessed May 27, 2014 . 
6. ^ Aryeh Dean Cohen: Holding Court: Derrick Sharp. The Jerusalem Post , February 5, 2009, accessed May 27, 2014 . 
7. ↑ Allon Sinai: The greatest Israeli sporting moments of the decade: No.1 - Derrick Sharp's magical triple makes history. The Jerusalem Post , December 31, 2009, accessed May 27, 2014 . 
8. ^ The Euroleague History Archive - Moscow 2005: Maccabi wins back-to-back crowns. ULEB , accessed May 27, 2014 . 
9. ↑ Associated Press : Raptors first in NBA to lose to Maccabi in 27 years. ESPN , October 16, 2005, accessed May 27, 2014 . 
10. ^ The Euroleague History Archive - Prague 2006: CSKA wins again after 35 years. ULEB , archived from the original on January 8, 2015 ; accessed on May 27, 2014 (English). 
11. ^ The Euroleague History Archive - Barcelona 2011: Panathinaikos lifts sixth crown. (No longer available online.) ULEB , archived from the original on February 23, 2014 ; accessed on May 27, 2014 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.