There are just too many adjectives to describe how the Israel Men’s National Basketball Team performed in the first window of 2027 World Cup Qualifiers and none of them are flattering to say the least.

Head Coach Ariel Beit Halachmi’s team looked like a shell of the squad that played in this summer’s Eurobasket, primarily because Deni Avdija, Tomer Ginat and Yam Madar were not available for the games at Germany and against Croatia.

But to describe the blue-and-white’s showing in these two contests would not do the words bad, brutal, awful, terrible, pathetic, embarrassing, you name it any justice.
They were an absolute disgrace.

It’s one thing to lose by 20-points to Germany, the past World and European champions, but it’s another to then come out and pretend (and the word is used lightly) to play versus Croatia where they were down 12-0 in under 3 minutes which set the tone for the balance of the match.

Israel had no flow, no clear ideas and no game plan to speak of with the word defense something that was quite foreign to this team. Plain and simple, Beit Halachmi did not prepare this team well enough to even attempt to compete against the two opponents. From top to bottom the blue-and-white were a disaster as the players looked as if they would have rather watched paint dry on a wall than represent their country with any sort of pride.

These are harsh words but one who watched the games would wholeheartedly agree. The coach had no impact on his players and no solutions in a second half against Croatia that they would like to forget and forget quickly.

There were plenty of newcomers to the team and players who did not play in the Eurobasket whether it was Gur Lavi, Lior Carreira, Yair Kravits, Tamir Blatt, Idan Zalmanson, Netanel Artzi and Roi Huber and that can obviously be a reason why Israel looked as poor as they did. But the likes of Yovel Zoosman, Khadeen Carrington, Itay Segev, Bar Timor and Roman Sorkin, who was really the only player that put in a solid performance, should have done better.

With the roster of players that were called up which included 8 Euroleague and EuroCup players, Israel had to do better, no ifs ands or buts. Mario Hezonja was the Croatian star and after he ate Hapoel Tel Aviv for lunch with Real Madrid last week, he did the same to the blue-and-white along with Michael Ruzic.

Just look at the stats from the loss to Croatia as they are extremely telling as they illustrate the story to perfection. Rebounds 38-27 for Croatia, assists 29-18 to Croatia. How about 2-pt field goals? 25/35 (71.4%) for Croatia to 20/41 (48.8%) for Israel. What is going on here?

The stats were similar in the Germany defeat as well. There are no hiding behind the stats, they always tell the truth and the truth is that Israel was beat in every which way in the two losses.

Beit Halachmi said in his post game comments that he didn’t want to make excuses but the team had very little time to practice, well that’s an excuse. Every team was in the same situation.
Playing the home game in Riga obviously is not the greatest of advantages for a team like Israel, but they have been doing this since the outbreak of the war back in October of 2023. So this is not new and it’s something that both the coach, staff and the majority of players have already experienced.

When Israel reconvenes once again in February 2026 they will have what should be a true home and home series against Cyprus in what will most probably be a pair of wins and oy vey if they are not. However, the damage is done for this World Cup campaign.

After that, Israel will face Croatia and Germany once again in July of 2026 which is a window that in theory the NBA players can join the squads as Deni Avdija, Ben Saraf and Danny Wolf would be available. But it’s unclear if their respective teams would allow them to participate and NBA players would also be available to not only Israel but Germany and Croatia as well.

In the four team World Cup qualifying group, the top three teams will advance to the second round and Israel will no doubt be one of those teams. The issue is that the records also follow the teams into that second round as the blue-and-white’s Group E will be combined with Group F which includes the likes of Poland, Latvia, Holland and Austria. From there the top three teams advance to Qatar.

There will be another window of games at the end of August where once again NBA players could participate, but will their teams give them permission to do so?

While it’s not impossible to advance if Israel finishes the first stage with a record of 2-4, it will be extremely difficult and the other teams will need to also drop games. So it’s not just Israel winning it’s also the others losing.

The bottom line is that Beit Halachmi and Israel would have done themselves a massive favor by at least beating Croatia and splitting this opening window, but they did not and will not have to face the consequences of a massive uphill battle going forward.

One thing is for certain, Israel can never, ever, ever look the way they did in this window if they have any designs on truly finding a way to get to Qatar as a participant and not as a spectator.