Gal Mekel

Gal Mekel
Mekel at the Mavericks in November 2013
Player information
birthday	4th March 1988 (age 32)
place of birth	Ramat Hasharon , Israel
size	191 cm
position	Point guard
college	Wichita State
Clubs as active
2006–2008 Wichita State Shockers ( NCAA ) 2008–2010 Maccabi Tel Aviv 2008–2010 → Hapoel Gilboa Galil 2010–2011 Hapoel Gilboa Galil 2011–2012 Benetton Treviso 2012–2013 Maccabi Haifa 2013–2014 Dallas Mavericks 2014 → Texas Legends ( D- League ) 2014 New Orleans Pelicans 2015 BK Nizhny Novgorod 2015 KK Red Star Belgrade Since 2016 Maccabi Tel Aviv 000 0 000 0 000 0 000 0 0
National team
Since 02009	Israel

Gal Mekel ( Hebrew גל מקל; * March 4, 1988 in Ramat Hasharon ) is an Israeli basketball player . After only two years of study in the United States and a career in the NCAA , Mekel returned to his home country as a professional in 2008. After a season in Italy in 2011/12, he became Israeli champion in 2013 with Maccabi Haifa. Then Mekel signed a contract in the highest endowed professional league NBA with the Dallas Mavericks, who in the meantime also used him in their " farm team " Texas Legends in the NBA D-League . In the NBA, Mekel was only the second Israel-born professional to play in the prestigious league after Omri Casspi .

Career

Mekel played in his youth in youth teams from Hapoel Tel Aviv and Maccabi Tel Aviv. In 2006 he went to the United States to study at Wichita State University , where he played for the Shockers college team in the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) of the NCAA . After initial difficulties as a freshman , he was a starter in his second season with over 30 minutes of playing time per game. After the Shockers had the best record of the MVC in 2006, they had rather average results during Mekel's student days and could not qualify for the national NCAA finals . There was also a change of coach, so that Mekel broke off his NCAA career after the second season and returned to his home country.

The dominant Israeli basketball club Maccabi Tel Aviv, where Mekel last played in his youth, secured the rights to Mekel, but initially loaned him to the league competitor Hapoel Gilboa Galil in the northern district . Here Mekel trained under coach Oded Kattash , who is one of the most famous Israeli players in Mekel's position as point guard and who had previously failed as a coach at Maccabi. At the 2009 European Championship finals , the former youth and junior national player was also represented in the men's squad of the Israeli national team for the first time , which, however, lost all three preliminary round matches and was eliminated early.

After Mekel only had short assignments at Maccabi afterwards, he went back to Gilboa Galil in December 2009, where he played with Jeremy Pargo and Brian Randle , among others . At the end of the 2009/10 season, Hapoel Gilboa Galil was able to surprise the defending champion Maccabi Tel Aviv at the Final Four tournament of the championship in the Ligat ha'Al after a strong second half in the final and won the club's second championship almost sensationally since 1993. While coach Kattash went to Hapoel Jerusalem , Mekel stayed another year with Gilboa Galil, who defeated Kattash's Hapoel Jerusalem in the semifinals as defending champion in the 2011 Final, but lost the title again to Maccabi Tel Aviv in the final. At the extended European Championship finals tournament in 2011 , Israel again lost the first three preliminary round matches with Mekel, including clearly at the start against Germany . The two preliminary round victories at the end were no longer sufficient to qualify for the intermediate round.

For the 2011/12 season Mekel also left Gilboa Galil and moved to the Italian Lega Basket Serie A to Benetton from Treviso . Between 1990 and 2005, the club was one of the strongest teams in Europe with several Final Four participations in the FIBA European Cup and the ULEB Euroleague as well as titles in the FIBA European Cup Winners' Cup . However, the club was already in massive financial straits and did not receive a new license at the end of the season. Under coach Aleksandar Đorđević , the team reached eleventh place of the regular season and no qualification for the play-offs for the championship.

Mekel then returned to the Israeli league and played in the 2012/13 season for Maccabi from Haifa . Mekel was awarded the MVP of the regular season in Israel for the main round in Haifa . After the team was able to defeat Mekel's old team Gilboa Galil and the Kattash-trained team from Hapoel Eilat in play-off series, defending champion Maccabi Tel Aviv was again able to win in the final from Mekel's point of view thanks to a double double from Pat Calathes as well 21 points and seven assists from Mekel surprise. Mekel became only the third player in the history of Israeli basketball to win championships with two clubs, none of which was Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Mekel at Maccabi Haifa in June 2013

After winning the championship, Mekel did not take part in the European Championship finals in 2013 with the national team, but recommended himself to the Dallas Mavericks for a three-year contract in the NBA. For the Mavericks, Mekel came in the NBA 2013/14 as a rookie in 31 missions on an average of just under ten minutes per game. In March 2014, Mekel was temporarily handed over by the Mavs to the " Farm Team " Texas Legends in the neighboring Frisco in order to collect match practice in the D-League. Before the start of the new 2014/15 season , Mekel had to make room in the squad for the return of JJ Barea .

Almost six weeks later, Mekel was signed by the New Orleans Pelicans in early December 2014. After four missions, the Pelicans renounced the services of Mekel two weeks later and released him from his contract.

After two short stays at the Russian club BK Nizhny Novgorod and the Serbian club KK Red Star Belgrade in 2015, Mekel returned to Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2016.

Web links

Commons : Gal Mekel  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Gal Mekel - player profile on NBA.com
• MEKEL, GAL - Statistics on the websites of the ULEB (English)
• Gal Mekel - Overview of participation in international FIBA tournaments on archive.fiba.com (English)
• Gal Mekel Stats - Wichita State Shockers - College play stats on statsheet.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} According to other sources such as B. in the FIBA archive and series A, Mekel was born in not far away Petach Tikwa .
2. ↑ Legabasket: Gal Mekel. Lega Basket Serie A , accessed June 22, 2014 (Italian, player profile). 
3. ↑ Pelicans Waive Gal Mekel. National Basketball Association , December 19, 2014, accessed January 3, 2015 (Pelicans media info).