With the NBA Draft this week, all eyes in Israel are on Ben Saraf who is still in the midst of the championship series in Germany. The 19-year old Israeli guard, who has been predicted to be selected in the first round of the entry draft, plies his trade for Ulm in the German Bundesliga and are just one game away from winning the league title as they lead Euroleague side Bayern Munich 2-1 in the best-of-5 game series.

Saraf has had a wonderful season abroad with Ulm both in the domestic competition as well as in the EuroCup as he perhaps played one of his best games of the year in his team’s game three victory on the road as he scored 20 points while adding four assists and four rebounds in 32 minutes of play while assisting on the game winning basket.

The Gan Yoshiya native will look to be the fourth Sabra to play in the world’s greatest league after the likes of Omri Casspi, Gal Mekel and Deni Avdija paved the way for Saraf to be the next great basket balling Sabra.

Before heading to Germany in order to hone his skills outside of the friendly confines of the Holy Land, Saraf had played in Israel’s second division with Elitzur Netanya and then last season in the Premier League with Kiryat Ata along with opening the eyes of all of the scouts at last summer’s Under-18 European Championship. Saraf was a dominant force for the U18 side and score 28.1 points per game and was named the tournament MVP while leading Israel to a 4th place finish.

Following his spectacular performance on the international stage while helping his country advance to the FIBA Under-19 World Championships for the first time, Saraf saw his stock rise amongst the NBA draft experts as he entered the top-10 early on in the season.

With scouts watching his every move during the course of the campaign, Saraf averaged 12.3 points and 4.2 assists primarily as the club’s starting point guard as the teenager was a star amongst men across all competitions.

While Saraf had been in the top-10 in many of the respected draft boards, once the college season began to hit its stride in America, many other names began to leapfrog the Israeli as March Madness allowed many players the opportunity to showcase themselves on one of the greatest basketball stages. With that, Saraf started to drop down and eventually settled in the 21-30 zone in the first round, but the guard still hasn’t said the last word.

With his spectacular showing in game 3 to help his team take the lead in the series against arguably Germany’s best team who is also coached by Canadian Gordie Herbert who led the German National Team to the European Championship title back in 2022, Saraf made a massive statement just days before his future team will be decided.

Should the series end with Ulm winning the championship on Tuesday night, Saraf will jet off to New York on Wednesday morning and will arrive in time to be present at the Draft that is being held at the Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets. However, if Bayern extends the series to a decisive 5th game, Saraf will be staying in Germany where he will find out his fate at some point in the middle of the night between Wednesday and Thursday.

NBA scouts saw Saraf in one of his best games this past weekend as he took charge and made his shots right from the tipoff and in the third quarter everything just exploded for the guard when he came out of halftime and scored 10 of his 20 points in that one single frame. Throughout the contest, Saraf penetrated well, displayed excellent defensive abilities on almost every position as he picked up a pair of steals while also doing a good job on the boards while passing the ball skillfully. Saraf has shown tremendous improvement in his free throws and while he is still working on his shot from outside of the arc, he did hit a huge corer triple to start off the third quarter to send Ulm on its way.

In money time, with all the pressure on him and his team on Bayern’s home court, Saraf showed composure and provided the assist for Justinian Jessup’s clutch 3-pointer to give Ulm the lead for good as they went on to win the game.

This will no doubt go down as one of Saraf’s best games of his young career right alongside the victory over Serbia in the U18 Round of 16 showdown were he almost chalked up a triple-double with 28 points, 10 rebounds and 9 assists as well as Kiryat Ata’s win over Maccabi Tel Aviv last season at Yad Eliyahu where he scored 15 points. Along the way Saraf has scored 40 points against Spain in the European Championship last summer, along with a 21-point performance in his German league debut in the road win against Chemnitz as the list goes on and on.

Now, all Saraf needs to do is help Ulm win game four on his home court on Tuesday night and he will head to New York and the NBA Draft as a champion ready to take on his next challenge. There is no question that Saraf doesn’t want the series to go to a 5th game for a multitude of reasons outlined above.

Saraf made a statement, a massive one as he rose to the occasion to show all of the NBA scouts and draft experts that they must understand the magnitude of the event certainly in relation to those who have been playing in college.