From being snubbed at the draft and starting his way in Eilat, he reached the very highest peaks of basketball, but as a supporting player. This season too, he was not supposed to be the man in charge of the Reds, yet with all-world basketball, Elijah Bryant is leading Hapoel Tel Aviv to the top of the EuroLeague standings.

Hapoel Tel Aviv is finally in Israel for a Euroleague clash, albeit it won’t be at Yad Eliyahu but at the Arena in the country’s capital city of Jerusalem and without a doubt the excitement to play at home so to speak in Europe’s premier competition is what everyone had been waiting for with bated breath. And what a game this is going to be: a top-of-the-table clash in red and white against Red Star Belgrade, who arrive in the Holy Land looking to bounce back after their derby loss to Partizan.

Immediately after the game, Itoudis’ team will fly to his homeland Greece for an extremely tough road clash against Panathinaikos, in a decisive week that will dictate a lot about the Reds’ position going forward. Hapoel Tel Aviv must finish the regular season in the top eight to secure a EuroLeague spot for next year as well and so far, things are going in that direction.

If one had asked over the summer who would be Hapoel Tel Aviv’s barometer this season, most probably there would have been several names before landing on that of Elijah Bryant. Vasilije Micić was signed for an unprecedented sum of money and came from across the Atlantic, Antonio Blakeney was still hot after helping the club lift the EuroCup and Jonathan Motley had been delivering the goods night after night. But in this season’s opening stretch, the former Hapoel Eilat guard has shown that he is the hottest player in red and seems to have his hand in the team’s success thus far.

Elijah Bryant’s story began 30 years ago in Georgia, USA. From a young age, Bryant showed impeccable control of the ball, but his big leap came at the age of 17, when he grew nearly 30 centimeters in a single year. The role originally intended for Bryant, who had been relatively short, was to be a point guard or catch-and-shoot guard. That growth spurt, which eventually took him to 197 cm (6’5”), turned his skill set into something especially attractive for a player of his dimensions. It caught the eyes of college recruiters and paved the way for a college career that culminated in his selection to the All-West Region Team of the NCAA in 2018, averaging 18.1 points and 6.3 rebounds per game at the university bearing his middle name, Brigham (BYU).

After that season, Bryant entered the NBA Draft, but unlike Kobe, his father Joe, Mark, or even Thomas, this Bryant was not selected. After trying to earn a contract through the Summer League, he headed overseas for the first stop of his professional career.

Apparently, names played a significant role around Elijah, because his next destination matched his mother’s first name, Israel. The guard landed in the southern city and signed a one-year deal with Hapoel Eilat as a replacement for Jordan Loyd, who would go on to become the first (but not last) NBA champion to pass through the VAT-free city.

Bryant adjusted quickly to the dry air and from the first moment showed his ability to be effective in every area of the floor. After an excellent individual and team season (17.5 points per game and a Final Four appearance), Bryant once again tried his luck with Milwaukee in the Summer League and yet again, he failed to secure a contract in the world’s best league. With that Maccabi Tel Aviv pounced on the opportunity, signing him on a two-year deal and he continued to flourish under Head Coach Ioannis Sfairopoulos while collaborating with veterans such as Omri Casspi, Amar’e Stoudemire and Othello Hunter, as well as Tyler Dorsey, Scottie Wilbekin and even Deni Avdija. A true melting pot if there was ever one.

In his second season, he joined forces with Oz Blayzer and Chris Jones, with whom he would play again with in the future. It’s astonishing to think of how many other names also shared the floor with him during that previous stint at Yad Eliyahu, from Dragan Bender to Sandy Cohen and there are even more. He won a championship and delivered several strong EuroLeague performances before Milwaukee added him to the list of Bryants who dribbled the ball on the biggest stage of all.

Jordan Loyd, who was mentioned earlier isn’t the last former Eilat player to have a championship ring on his finger as Elijah Bryant had a relatively quiet part of the Bucks’ title run in the summer of 2021 alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton. He played in 12 games, 11 of them in the playoffs, including a one-minute appearance in the Finals series against Phoenix.

After that season, the Bucks waived Bryant and shifted gears back to the Euroleague where he signed with champions Anadolu Efes where he would play alongside Vasilije Micić and Shane Larkin, helping them win another European title. The following season he took home the Turkish league title as well and thus Bryant completed a streak of four different championships in four consecutive years.

During his time in Turkey, Bryant showcased his versatile skill set: steady shooting from all ranges, the ability to score and pass like a guard, to switch defensively onto any player and to be one of the most effective rebounders at his position. During his tenure at Anadolu Efes, he was never the main star and always stood in the shadows of Micić, Larkin, Will Clyburn and Tibor Pleiss, but consistently, year after year, he was the kind of player who made his teammates better.

That is likely one of the reasons he was brought in to be such an important piece of the Hapoel Tel Aviv puzzle, alongside many players he has previously played with (Jones, Micić, Dan Oturu and Blayzer). It’s certainly why it is so much fun to watch him become the star of this team now which has been sitting at the very top of Europe for quite some time.

He is not the immediate suspect for stardom, but a player who traveled a very long road and earned his place on every court purely through ability, from Hapoel Eilat to the Milwaukee Bucks. This EuroLeague season, he ranks second only to Sylvain Francisco in efficiency index among guards and first among them in rebounds per game (tenth in the entire league). He leads Hapoel Tel Aviv in minutes, points and efficiency rating per game, is second in assists and rebounds and is everywhere on the court. This is who Elijah Bryant is.

When Micić shows inconsistency, Oturu and Motley are often matchup-dependent and Blakeney in recent weeks checks in only in the fourth quarter, Bryant is the one carrying the team on his back in almost every conceivable aspect. Be it with his quality, versatility, experience at the highest levels and the mindset of a champion who has stood on the two highest peaks club basketball has to offer.

Ultimately, you can view him as a kind of “title contractor,” someone who turns good teams into better ones, who helps take them all the way. This may be the first time Elijah has been given the keys to lead a EuroLeague team and yet he does so in his modest, team-oriented, but also bold and fearless way.

So far, this has led Hapoel Tel Aviv to first place in the competition and will be a serious threat heading into the playoffs and the Final Four. Waiting just around the corner (Tuesday, 21:05) is Red Star for a duel between him and Jordan Nwora, his former teammate from their Anadolu days and on Thursday (21:15) Panathinaikos and his former coach Ergin Ataman, who led him to a EuroLeague title.

Elijah Bryant wants to prove that this is his time, at age 30 to be etched in gold letters as the centerpiece of a dream European season. His success is our success.