Doron Sheffer

Doron Sheffer
Player information
Nickname	Iceman
birthday	12th March 1972 (age 48)
place of birth	Ramat Gan , Israel
size	195 cm
position	Shooting Guard / Point Guard
college	Connecticut
NBA draft	1996 , 36th Pick Los Angeles Clippers
Clubs as active
1990–1993 Hapoel Galil Elyon 1993–1996 UConn Huskies ( NCAA ) 1996–2000 Maccabi Tel Aviv 2002–2003 Maccabi Tel Aviv 2003–2005 Hapoel Jerusalem 2005–2006 Hapoel Tel Aviv 2007–2008 Hapoel Galil Elyon
National team
1992-2000	Israel

Doron Sheffer ( Hebrew דורון שפר; * March 12, 1972 in Ramat Gan ) is a retired Israeli basketball player . After winning the championship with Hapoel Galil Elyon in 1993, when serial champion Maccabi Tel Aviv lost the national championship title for the first time since 1970 and Sheffer was awarded the MVP of the Israeli League at the age of 21 , Sheffer was considered the most talented Israeli basketball player of the 1990s.

After a three-year study period in the United States , he was also selected in 1996 as the first player to grow up in Israel in the entry draft of the highest-endowed professional league NBA . However, Sheffer went back to his home country and has now won other national championships with Maccabi Tel Aviv.

After ending his career for the time being in 2000, he returned as a professional almost three years later after overcoming cancer. With Hapoel Jerusalem he won the ULEB Cup 2003/04 and finally ended his active career after another season with Hapoel Galil Elyon in 2008. After retiring as a basketball player, Sheffer worked as a musician and songwriter.

Career

Sheffer started his career in 1990 in the senior team of Hapoel Galil Elyon in the Northern District . After winning the national cup competition with this team in 1992, the following season 1992/93 serial champion Maccabi Tel Aviv, who had won all championship titles since 1970, dethroned and defeated cup winner Hapoel Tel Aviv in the final series of the championship. Thus, the team under coach Pini Gershon won the first Israeli championship of a club that did not reside in Tel Aviv. Sheffer was named MVP of the Israeli top division Ligat ha'Al at the age of 21 .

He decided to begin his studies in the United States, the "motherland" of basketball, to play basketball in the NCAA . He went to the University of Connecticut , where his compatriot Nadav Henefeld had already played basketball as a student a few years earlier. Sheffer played for the university team "Huskies" from 1993 to 1996 for three years in what was then the Big East Conference of the NCAA. In its first season, Sheffer was named "Big East Rookie of the Year". His career in the NCAA received media attention in his basketball-loving home. In the Huskies under coach Jim Calhoun , Sheffer played with the later NBA pros Donyell Marshall , Kevin Ollie and Ray Allen , among others . With the latter, Sheffer won the Big East championship tournament together in 1996. After they reached the round of 16 of the Sweet Sixteen in 1994 at the national NCAA finals tournament , they made it into the quarter-finals of the Elite Eight in 1995 , in which they lost to the eventual champion UCLA Bruins . A year later, in Sheffers final season, the Huskies surprisingly lost the Bulldogs of Mississippi State University in the round of 16 .

At the age of 24, Sheffer signed up for the NBA draft after only three years in the NCAA . While his teammate Ray Allen was already selected in fifth position, Sheffer was finally selected in the second round in 36th position as the first Israeli player in an NBA draft ever by the Los Angeles Clippers . Although selected only in the second round, Sheffer was offered a guaranteed contract by the Clippers, which at the time were among the most unsuccessful teams in the NBA and had only made two play-offs in the previous 20 years .

Sheffer decided to return to his homeland, this time going to Maccabi Tel Aviv, who had overcome the championship loss of 1993 and won the following titles again. In the 1996/97 season they lost the cup final again against defending champion Hapoel Jerusalem, but otherwise they won all national titles and the championships from 1998 to 2000 as a double up to 2000 . After being eliminated three times in a row in the round of 16 of the FIBA Europaliga against Efes Pilsen Istanbul 1997, Fortitudo Teamsystem Bologna 1998 and Virtus Kinder Bologna 1999, they won the Europaliga play-offs of the 1999/2000 season under coach Gershon, who also joined Maccabi in 1998 came in the round of 16 against Final Four hosts PAOK Thessaloniki and in the quarter-finals against last year's fourth Fortitudo Winnington Bologna. For the first time since 1991, Maccabi was in the Final Four tournament in the highest-ranking European club competition, in which they defeated FC Barcelona in the semifinals . In the final, however, they lost 67:73 to Panathinaikos Athens , where Oded Kattash , who had previously formed a dangerous backcourt at Maccabi with Sheffer , with 17 points for Panathinaikos played a decisive role in the success of the Greeks.

In the Israeli national team , Sheffer had participated in all the finals of the European basketball championship since 1993. At the European Championship final tournament in 1995 and the European Championship final tournament in 1999 , they missed the qualification for the Olympic Games and, like the other two-year finals, were eliminated before the quarter-finals. After the end of the 1999/2000 season and the lost European League final, Sheffer declared his temporary withdrawal from competitive sports and initially undertook extensive trips around the world. Eventually Sheffer was diagnosed with testicular cancer and lost significant weight. After his recovery, he then trained again for a return to competitive sports and made a comeback at Maccabi Tel Aviv in the 2002/03 season without making a permanent return to the fixed rotation of the players used. For the 2003/04 season Sheffer then moved to Hapoel from Jerusalem, with whom he won the second European Cup ULEB Cup 2003/04 .

In the following season 2004/05 the team could not follow up on this success and retired as defending champion in the ULEB Cup 2004/05 already after the preliminary round. Sheffer initially signed a contract with Hapoel Tel Aviv for the 2005/06 season, but then announced his resignation again, only to return to the field in December 2005. With the Israeli runner-up and bitter local rivals from Maccabi Tel Aviv, however, a conflict raged over the move to the larger home ground, Yad Eliyahu Arena , which was otherwise only used by Maccabi. This conflict between the owner and the fans overshadowed the season in which Hapoel clearly missed entry into the final tournament for the title in eighth place in the Ligat ha'Al.

Sheffer ended his career again at the end of the season, only to play another season for Hapoel Galil Elyon in Galilee a year later in the 2007/08 season , where he had started his career with the seniors. In the ULEB Cup 2007/08 they won only three out of ten games in the preliminary round and lost, among other things, twice against the Austrian representative Allianz Swans Gmunden . Also in the Israeli league they disappointed in eighth place at the end of the season.

Sheffer then ended his active career for good. Sheffer, who grew up secular in a wealthy family , and his second wife increasingly turned to a more religious life and otherwise appeared as a musician in public.

Web links

Commons : Doron Sheffer  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Popular Doron Sheffer videos - YouTube channel about Doron Sheffer ( English )
• Sheffer, DORON - Statistics on the websites of the ULEB (English)
• Doron SHEFFER (ISR) - Overview of participation in FIBA tournaments (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Doron Sheffer. UConnHoopLegends.com, accessed June 21, 2014 (English, portrait from 2004). 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Mike Jensen: In Israel, He Is Connecticut's Big Star Donyell Marshall? Doron Sheffer Is Getting Away From It All Here. He May Win A Title, Too. The Philadelphia Inquirer , March 22, 1994, accessed June 21, 2014 (repro of an article in the news archive). 
3. ↑ The Euroleague History Archive - Thessaloniki 2000: Panathinaikos is back. (No longer available online.) ULEB , archived from the original on October 8, 2014 ; accessed on June 21, 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.  
4. ↑ ^{a b} Hillel Kuttler: Scoring for God: The Spiritual Journey of Former Basketball Star Doron Sheffer. Orthodox Union , August 12, 2013, accessed June 21, 2014 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Yarone Arbel: Doron Sheffer returns to action at Galil. ULEB , July 30, 2007, accessed June 21, 2014 . 
6. ↑ Javier Gancedo: Real Madrid vs. Hapoel Migdal Jerusalem. ULEB , April 13, 2004, accessed June 21, 2014 (English, match report).