{"id":13036,"date":"2019-02-21T06:43:18","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T06:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sportsrabbi.agpwebdesign.com\/?p=13036"},"modified":"2019-02-21T06:43:18","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T06:43:18","slug":"rising-star-deni-avdija-israel-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/en\/rising-star-deni-avdija-israel-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Rising star Deni Avdija set for Israel National Team Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After capturing the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/israeli-phenom-deni-avdija-returns-home-with-mvp\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Basketball Without Borders MVP award<\/a>, rising star Deni Avdija will be making his Senior Israel National Team debut Thursday night when the <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/2S9cxAk\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Blue &#038; White face Germany<\/a> at the Drive In Arena in Tel Aviv. The projected 2020 NBA lottery pick will get his chance to shine on the international stage once again after winning a Gold Medal with the U20 squad this past summer. <\/p>\n<p>Avdija looked ahead to the matchup against Germany and Sunday&#8217;s contest on the road in Serbia:<br \/>\n\u201cI am very excited to make my debut and there isn\u2019t anything better than to represent your country at such a young age. It\u2019s a huge honor.\u201d<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_13042\" style=\"width: 1010px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/image.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13042\" src=\"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/image.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13042\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13042\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">FIBA.com<\/p><\/div><br \/>\nThe National Team is the pinnacle for many athletes and Avdija is putting in a huge effort in order to be at his best, \u201cOf course I\u2019ve been busy over the last month. But the National Team is above everything else and it\u2019s an honor to wear the uniform. I\u2019m very proud and I want to put my best in at practice and in the games.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Avdija&#8217;s father, Zufer represented Yugoslavia and is Serbian which could have been an option for Deni, but he chose to be loyal to his birth country, \u201cI\u2019m totally behind my choice to represent Israel. I won a Gold medal this past summer in the Under-20 European Championships with my teammates and I\u2019ve played for Israel in many campaigns. There isn\u2019t anything better in my opinion than to represent Israel. Playing against Serbia is also great, it will be a special game.\u201d<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_13043\" style=\"width: 1010px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/image-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13043\" src=\"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/image-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"670\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13043\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13043\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">FIBA.com<br \/><\/p><\/div><br \/>\nWith his debut just hours away, Avdija wants to make the most of his opportunity, \u201cAs a young player you want to take part in every game and play as many minutes as possible. You want to give 100% when you get your chance. I\u2019m proud to be here and I\u2019ll continue to work hard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Make sure to follow The Sports Rabbi<\/strong> on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/thesportsrabbi\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter @thesportsrabbi<\/a> as we cover Deni Avdija&#8217;s National Team debut live in Tel Aviv against Germany on Thursday at 19:30 Israel time when the Blue &#038; White tip-off against Germany  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After capturing the Basketball Without Borders MVP award, rising star Deni Avdija will be making his Senior Israel National Team debut Thursday night when the Blue &#038; White face Germany at the Drive In Arena in Tel Aviv. The projected 2020 NBA lottery pick will get his chance to shine on the international stage once [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":13041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9,848],"tags":[37,536,29],"class_list":["post-13036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-european-competitions-holy-land-hoops","category-holy-land-hoops","category-israel-national-team-football-israel-2-holy-land-hoops","tag-deni-avdija","tag-germany","tag-israel","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Rising star Deni Avdija set for Israel National Team Debut - Sports Rabbi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After capturing the Basketball Without Borders MVP award, rising star Deni Avdija will be making his Senior Israel National Team debut against Germany\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/en\/rising-star-deni-avdija-israel-debut\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rising star Deni Avdija set for Israel National Team Debut - 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