“I’m just trying to get my teammates involved, being aggressive and just trying to win. The coach’s have been really helping me understand the game and its showing across the stat sheet as I am improving and helping my team win.”
This is how Maccabi Tel Aviv’s brand new acquisition Keenan Evans began our interview earlier this season, well before he helped take Hapoel Haifa to a fantastic 5th place finish before falling to Hapoel Eilat in the Israel Basketball League quarterfinals.
Evans was a key cog in the machine that led Elad Hasin’s club to a surprising first season back in the top division after twenty years in the lower leagues. So important was the 24-year old, he earned many votes as the league’s Most Valuable Player including from your truly as he ended up earning a berth as a Second Team All-Star.
The Richardson, Texas native had a superb first season which opened the eyes of many clubs around Europe including Maccabi Tel Aviv who has been in need of a top flight point guard to play alongside the team’s star Scottie Wilbekin. After averaging 18.5 points, 4.1 rebounds, 6.4 assists, 2.1 steals and an efficiency rating of 25.8 to lead the league by 2 points over the eventual MVP Casey Prather, Evans showed exactly why he is a wanted man by Euroleague teams across the continent.
Evans spent four years at Texas Tech and then signed a two-way contract with the Detroit Pistons and despite not having played in an NBA game honed his skills in the G-League. Following his first year in Europe with Igokea based in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Evans signed with Hapoel Haifa where he had a fruitful relationship with head coach Elad Hasin from the get go.
“He’s just a player’s coach and he’s very understanding. Even before I came to Israel he was calling me and sending me clips of the players and how I should work on my game and what we would be focusing on once I would get here,” Evans began.
Igokea was a good starting point for the guard and following the lone season he spent in Bosnia, Evans was well aware that in order to continue to advance in his career a move would be in order to a stronger league.
“After the season with Igokea which was a pretty decent season for me, my agent Chris Emens who has a lot of good connections in Israel and I did a check on coach Elad and how he would be good for my career and put me in the position where I can grow as a player. This is a great league for a player like me to advance to the next level. We thought that this was a great situation.”
Watching Evans move and groove on the court with his high octane offense plus stellar defense, one could see that it wasn’t just his skills that has carried him to this point in his career but also growing up in a sports family while falling in love with basketball from a very early age.
“Both of my parents grew up playing basketball. My mom went to college for basketball and my dad went for track but loved basketball in high school. When I was a kid there are pictures of me in diapers with a basketball, there was just this love for the game which grew. I tried football in junior high and it was fun, but I didn’t have that love for it like I had for basketball. Once I got to high school and I wanted to just focus on this and it took off from there.”
Keenan’s father Kenny Evans actually participated in the 2000 Olympic Games as a high jumper, “It was amazing when I met guys in high school who were on the track team they always spoke about how my father had gone to the Olympics. It was the most random thing and for me it was like ok, but for them it’s awesome and it really is something special.”
After attending Berkner High School it was onto college where Evans was recruited by Tubby Smith at Texas Tech, the same Smith that won a National Championship with Kentucky back in 1998.
“I had other teams in the Big 12 look at me and other conferences as well. But as for playing time and the strength of the Big 12 Conference and where I could grow the most and have the family being able to watch me, I felt Texas Tech was the best option for me.”
During his time at Texas Tech, Tubby Smith was replaced by Chris Beard after his Sophomore year in which the team ended with a 19-13 record good enough for a spot in the NCAA Tournament but not good enough to get out of the first round where they fell to Butler.
“It was very weird and also as to how I found out. I woke up to an ESPN notification and that was how we found out. My roommates were the same guys that I came in to school with and we were sitting in the living room talking about what was now going to happen. Is anyone thinking about transferring, we wanted to stay together as a group. But once we found out it was coach Chris Beard coming in we did our research, we called former players and coaches to see what type of guy who he was.”
The type of guy they found was that one that took the bull by the horns and helped with a massive overhaul of the program, instituting a major culture change as the players bought into the new coach rank and file.
“Everybody believed in each other and we had to buy into his process. He had promises for us like if we did this or that he would get us better food on game days. I’ll have a better nutrition plan and he was doing the extra stuff to have our bodies ready to go out there and perform for each other. The year we went to the Elite 8 there were so many open seats at the beginning of the season but by the end you’ve got to buy tickets and it was crazy. We all bought into the culture and we knew we were playing for the person next to us on the bench.”
NBA players Zhaire Smith and Jarrett Culver were part of the Texas Tech roster as freshmen while Evans is a senior which allowed him the opportunity to see their growth right before his very eyes.
“It was pretty cool and I never looked at myself as a veteran like Jason Siggers was to me at Haifa. There would be certain situations where I would help them understand the game but I just wanted them to play free. I knew they had the talent and skills and I didn’t want them to think too much. We all pitched in to help them as we all saw their talent and where they would be going. It was fun to see them growing from the start of the season all the way to the last game against Villanova.”
Following his college career, Evans went undrafted but went on to sign a two-way contract with the Detroit Pistons and played in the G-League, “It was very tough at first because I did not get in a draft process coming off of an injury that took a long time to heal. The whole first pro season was kind of painful and I had a hurt foot still. I knew that this is what is going to be in the first season but it was definitely fun and a learning experience and being in an atmosphere where you are around the best of the best is really fun. I appreciated my time with them and I’ve got to keep working to get back to that side of the table.”
After his first season as a pro in North America it was on to Europe and a year abroad at Igokea for Evans where he continued to learn what it would take to get to the promised land, both figuratively and literally.
“The money (at Igokea) was really good and the league was really good which allowed me to play against Partizan and Red Star and a couple of other EuroCup teams. If you want to play in Europe, it was a very good start. Igokea was in a very small city, so Israel is looking very big for me now compared to how Bosnia was. It was as very good learning experience. Rashad Vaughn played in the NBA and he had great stories and Mike Green who was a Champions League MVP was cool to see how he operates along with Dorell Wright. They taught me how to deal with situations.”
The ultimate goal for almost every basketball player is to play at the highest level that they can with the NBA always in the back of their heads. That is no different with Evans, “The NBA is the goal forever. You just got to trust the process and while that’s the long term goal I am still enjoying my time over here and learning as much as I can and just trying to make the most of it.”
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