Guy Goodes pulled the emergency brake after last night’s loss to Petkimspor in their BCL Play In series that saw Holon lose 2-1 as they were eliminated from European competition. That was apparently enough for Goodes as he bailed out on the Purples and left Guy Kaplan to clean up the leftovers of what is going to end up most probably being a very tough season when it all comes to an end in the Spring.

After Marcus Bingham was sold to Hapoel Tel Aviv for an astronomical amount and Niv Misgav made his way to Hapoel Gilboa Galil, there is no question that Goodes’s feathers were ruffled with both moves. That is especially true with Bingham who had been rumored to be going to Valencia and then a few weeks later headed to Hapoel Tel Aviv for a nice chunk of change.

Goodes was able to bring in a pair of guards in Brendan Adams and Mike Davis Jr. with the former breaking his foot in the State Cup quarterfinals against Bnei Herzliya earlier in the week and the latter being out injured for the past couple of weeks as well which left the bench boss with a very, very short roster.

The club did not bring in a replacement for Bingham although they would have loved to have brought in a player like Kiryat Ata’s Chris Smith. But, as Goodes said in a number of press conferences that he is not planning on signing a player just for the sake of doing so and the player that they will bring in will be an integral part of the team and one that will make them better.

However, with what was left with the purples going forward, that had seemed to be enough for the bench boss to take and instead of dealing with the fans jeering him at every opportunity and without the tools to compete, it was clear that he said, enough is enough.

There are a lot of questions about the construction of the squad along with Joe Ragland who had been rumored to be a part of the Bingham package never made his way over to Holon and for all intents and purposes doesn’t have a true role on Dimitrios Itoudis’s team, playing minimal minutes in Europe while not even being dressed in the Israeli league. The 2022 Champion and Finals MVP with the purples could have made a big difference in the team’s fortunes.

Will Holon bring in players now under Kaplan who was named to fill Goodes’s post “for the time being”? Is a replacement for Brendan Adams necessary or not as according to the club the guard will be back in two months while Goodes said not once but twice that Adams finished his season.

Is Holon going to compete for the league title or are they just going to try their best and see what they can do with what they have?

There’s plenty of time left in the season, 4+ months to be precise and Holon will still be able to win plenty of games, but can they really beat the cream of the crop with what they have on their current roster? Can they get past Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Jerusalem, Hapoel Tel Aviv, Maccabi Ramat Gan and Bnei Herzliya?

For many seasons the purples were considered as one of the top three teams in the country and now for all intents and purposes they are hoping to compete for fourth and even that’s in question.

Holon definitely have some financial issues and the funds that came in for Bingham as well as the savings on Misgav are significant. Money that would have been earned from the BCL Round of 16 will obviously not be coming in now and that was a hit which also could have led to Goodes wanting to bid adieu to Holon and vice versa.

All in all, it’s unfortunate that Goodes and Holon are no longer. Israeli basketball is always much better off when Goodes is on the sidelines coaching a team. He’s been a constant in the local basketball scene for so many years, as a player and as a coach spanning an incredible four decades and still has plenty to offer.

I remember seeing Goodes at the 2023-24 Israeli league season opener between Nes Ziona and Hapoel Afula back on, yes, October 6, 2023 the day befoee the at broke out. In fact it was less than 24 hours before Hamas would launch an unrelentless attack on the Jewish State. 

Goodes was unemployed at the time as he had just finished a run with Hapoel Holon that saw him win the league title in 2022 as his assistant Amit Sherf took over the purple’s reins. We spoke about basketball, the league and Europe but I kept thinking, how is it possible that Goodes isn’t coaching anywhere right now.

A couple of months later he did head back to the sidelines as he replaced Oren Aharoni at Hapoel Haifa, his childhood team. But of course, with the war going on the situation was not ideal for a struggling Carmel Reds teams but, Goodes unabated was able to keep them not only in the league but managed to get them to .500 and a place in the quarterfinals against Hapoel Tel Aviv in a magnificent coaching job.

Hopefully, Goodes will find his way back onto a bench very soon. Will it be in Israel or abroad, that time will tell but one thing is for certain, we haven’t heard the last of Guy Goodes and the sport of basketball.