Football Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells famously once said, “You are what your record says you are.”

And that so clearly explains the story thus far for the four Israeli teams that played in their respective competitions on Tuesday night.

Hapoel Tel Aviv with an 8-2 record just keeps motoring along in the Euroleague, tearing apart one team after the next with ease as the most recent conquest of Baskonia to the tune of 114-89 was a picture perfect reflection of their season to date.

One at a time, their rivals line up to tip off with them and one by one they get demolished in fine fashion. Head Coach Dimitrios Itoudis’s side had such an easy time with the team from the Basque country it wasn’t even funny. Elijah Bryant was superb with 24 points and 9 rebounds for an efficiency rating of 38(!) which will pretty much lock up the Player of Gameday 10 award.

The balance of the squad saw minutes spread around to all of the players with Tai Odiase playing over 20 minutes along with Tyler Ennis, Guy Palatin and Bar Timor also receiving playing time and yes this time more than the 5.6 seconds the two Israelis played last week. In fact, every one of the 12 players scored in this game which sets them up very nicely for a Thursday date with Fenerbahce, which will have both Itoudis and Jonathan Motley chomping at the bit as they will face one of their former clubs.

Hapoel couldn’t have asked for a better start to the season with just over 25% now in the bag. It’s really incredible as to how good the roster is and how well they can play in the continental competition. In reality, the Reds have to play well and finish in one of the top spots or else they may not be participating in the world’s second best league as they do not have a long term license with the Euroleague.

They lead the way in points per game with 93.2, they have the best free throw percentage with 84.2%

they are in second place in 2-point percentage at 59.7%, third in 3-point percentage at 41%, first in field goal percentage at 52.3% which is the only team over the 50% mark and last in offensive rebounds as they are just scoring, scoring and scoring some more.

With an 8-2 record Hapoel Tel Aviv is at the top, top of the standings and in fine position to reach their goals for this season.

If you flip the script and record to 2-8, well you’ve got Maccabi Tel Aviv in dead last. Plain and simple, they are exactly what their record says they are, one big mess.

Sure, they are competitive in some of their recent games, but they don’t have, 1) the firepower down the stretch of the contest to close it out and chalk up a win and 2) they don’t have the defense to make a difference either. That is why they are an abysmal 2-8.

That’s what was witnessed yet again in their 84-75 loss to Fenerbahce in a game that they were down by about 20 points, came back to take the lead but then frittered it away to eventually run out of gas and lose by 9 points.

Maccabi’s roster is just not good enough to come away with the wins at the end of the day and we’ve all seen it now week after week. Even the games they won, against Hapoel Tel Aviv which was an aberration and against Real Madrid thanks to a last second shot by Tamir Blatt, they are just not good enough. There has been one disappointment after the next and the players who were signed to be the stars of the team have been anything but.

How is it possible that Lonnie Walker, Maccabi’s biggest signing of the off-season plays only a paltry 14:05 and scores 7 measly points. Marcio Santos plays 3:16 and Oshae Brissett is on the floor for 15:24 and scored 2 points, what is going on here?

There was a report this past week by Or Shkedy from Walla that Walker has a slight tear in his quad muscle and is not a new injury, something he had already when he signed with Maccabi. Due to that, the club will need to manage his playing time to ensure that he will play to his maximum ability. This came as quite a surprise of course to both the club and the fans as well.

Add to that the injury that Iffe Lundberg arrived in Israel with that will keep him out of practice with contact for close to two weeks and then will need to be integrated into the team and what you have is yet another issue that Maccabi could do without.

And of course you have the fans who are protesting against ownership on top of that and what you have is the perfect storm.

One needs to wonder what is going on here with Maccabi, whose responsibility are the signings and what role does general manager Claudio Coldebella have in this entire story because it’s becoming a very sad one.

Over at Hapoel Jerusalem they sit in second place with a 5-2 record after a 110-93 win over Neptunas. They are what their record says as well, a team that is good, in fact, very good with a lot of solid tools but yet beatable if they are not there mentally. In a game that they didn’t have Justin Smith who is nursing an ankle issue it was guard Cassius Winston who proclaimed to the world he is back and better than ever with a whopping 35 points.

This was Cash’s coming out party after having recently been sick while also returning from an injury. The guard was unstoppable as both he and Jared Harper combined for 56 points on the night, more than half of the Reds offense. Yovel Zoosman who had a pretty tough start to the season came back with yet another solid performance going 3/3 from beyond the arc and scoring 13 points while Anthony Lamb finally had a good scoring game with 17 points.

The key for Jerusalem is consistency and they have been consistently inconsistent thus far which explains the 5-2 record to a T. Even in the game itself they saw stretches of seriously inconsistent basketball going down by 14-points with 4:05 left in the third quarter.

Jerusalem needs to find a way to put together 40 minutes of solid basketball on a regular basis, game in and game out not just one time here and one time there because a better team that Neptunas would have taken advantage of the situation.

Last but not least is Bnei Herzliya who are now 0-4 in Basketball Champions League action after yet another loss, this time to Trapani 101-88 and they are without question what their record says they are. One needs to really look at why Yehu Orland’s team is competing in Europe. They don’t have the manpower and personnel to do so in what is a fairly strong league and it’s unfortunate that they are struggling so much.

Of the four losses, two were within 4 points and in this defeat Herzliya was close at times, but as they say, close but no cigar. They do have some solid players, that there is no question of with Elijah Stewart and Chinanu Onuaku but the roster is really not built for Europe. It’s nice to play continental hoops, but it would be nicer to play when you can compete as well and the last thing that Yehu Orland wants to do is finish 0-6.