Thursday night at Yad Eliyahu is when the stars always come out to shine and no one shined brighter than Yam Madar as Hapoel crushed Maccabi in a one-sided Tel Aviv Derby by the final score of 115-97.

Sure, the game was close after the opening quarter, but that because Yam Madar was just warming up for what was to be a historical night for Israeli basketball. The wiry guard had only hit his first of nine triples in that first quarter and added two more by the end of the half for 14 points.

While Madar was having a good game, no one knew what was to come over the final twenty minutes of action. Madar kept shooting and shooting and shooting some more as he knocked down a half a dozen more 3-pointers going 6/6 from deep in the second half for a grand total of 9/10 from beyond the in 35 minutes of action.

Madar flipped the 14 points over the first half to 41 points in total, which matched his uniform number when he played with Partizan Belgrade and Fenerbahce, in what was one of those games that left Israeli basketball fans thirsting for more.

Unfortunately, basketball aficionados did not see this version of Yam Madar all season long as he spent the first part of the campaign rehabilitating from a knee injury and then when he did return, never did the guard find his place in Dimitrios Itoudis’s rotation in the Euroleague.

With that in mind, this part of the world may not be able to see what Madar is capable of doing on a game in game out basis if given the opportunity going into next year as his future has been reported to be across the Atlantic Ocean at LSU for an unfathomable $5 million per season. This is all thanks to the NIL deals that have been ravaging the game of basketball, although NCAA rule changes are in the air and may deep-six the move to North America.

Sure, we may get the chance to see Madar star in the Israeli league playoffs and perhaps even lead the Reds to their first Championship in over 50 years, but that may be it and as they say when he’ll pick up his bags and head out the door, “That’s all folks” and that would be just sad.

Madar is a true talent, one that doesn’t come along every day or every week, or every year or every decade.

The guard can shoot the lights out of the ball as the basketball world witnessed in the Derby win. He can move and groove with the best of them due to his frame and can find that opening on the floor that others can not. That’s what makes Madar unique and that generational player.

Sure, he’s had his ups and downs both on and off of the basketball court since he was selected by the Boston Celtics in the second round of the 2020 NBA Draft, the same Draft that saw NBA All-Star Deni Avdija picked by 9th overall by the Washington Wizards. The pair led the Israel Under-20 National Team to the 2019 European Championship and helped the senior team get into the knockout rounds of the most recent Eurobasket that took place last summer although Itoudis would have rathered Madar not go to the championships due to his injury.

There were mistakes with Madar leaving Partizan for Fenerbahce after just one season to go along with a disastrous spell at Bayern Munich. Arguably his second act with Hapoel Tel Aviv will not go down as he had wanted it to be despite being a huge reason why the reds even played in the Euroelague this season after he decided to play his heart out injured in the EuroCup postseason last year.

No one can ever say that Madar put himself ahead of the team as he gave his team every last ounce of what he had in the tank. Unfortunately, that didn’t lead to much personal success this year and that is obviously something that has nagged him all year long.

It was terrific to see Madar’s father Zohar in the stands watching the masterpiece, the Rembrandt, Picasso or Monet that the guard put in. He was in awe just like everyone else in the arena was, whether they were wearing red or yellow. Madar was on fire and was just going to keep hitting one shot after the next.

The Israel basketball league has had its issues this past season, from the war with Iran sending the foreigners home with many not coming back. Many new faces have entered the fray since the fragile ceasefire was announced back in April as the unknown ruled the roost. That was followed by the Israeli players strike which never should have occurred that led to a week of games with just the import players on the court as the majority of teams played with just 5 or 6 players in what turned out to out to be a farcical situation and an embarrassment to all.

But just as all seemed to be lost as the league heads into the postseason, Madar pulled the rabbit out of the hat and maybe, just maybe saved Israeli basketball from itself.

On the biggest stage of them all, the coveted Derby, Madar came up huge and perhaps put on a show that will launch the playoffs and give the league the boost that it needed and the desire to see more of what we all did on Thursday.

Who wouldn’t want to see a Best-of-5 Derby Championship Series between Hapoel and Maccabi?

It may be hypothetical right now, but it’s a reality that everyone will be thirsting for and one that will thrust Israeli basketball back into the spotlight by saving a season that had almost been spoiled.