19-Year-Old upcoming Basketball Star Deni Avdija drafted in NBA as No.9 Pick Overall

Throughout the NBA's history there have only been three Israeli born basketball players, and Deni Avdija is about to become the fourth. The 19-year-old wing has been selected as the no. 9 overall pick for the 2020 NBA Draft and will play with the Washington D.C. Wizards. He is the first top-10 NBA Draft pick from Israel. Before this 2020 draft, no Israeli had been picked higher than 23rd overall. Avdija, born in 2001 in Beit Zera, joins Omri Casspi, T.J. Leaf and Gal Mekel as positive representations for Israel in this extremely popular league. Yam Madar, another Israeli born basketball player has been drafted as the 47th pick to play for the Celtics. Deni Avdija has professional basketball in his blood. His father, Serbian-Israeli Zufer Avdiji was a professional player who had over a decade long career in European basketball competitions, playing for the Yugoslavian national team and then later a number of Israeli clubs. His mother Sharon Artzi was also a professional athlete, a former championship runner. Deni Avdija has had professional experience in Europe, having played two seasons in the Euro league playing for Maccabi Tel Aviv, arguably the best club in Israel. He was the youngest ever player in the clubs history, making his debut at 16 years, 320 days old and signing a six-year contract with them. Avdija also has plenty of international basketball experience. At just 17 he competed in the Israeli Under-20 team that won the gold medal at the 2018 FIBA championship. In 2019 his team again won the FIBA gold. Avdija became the youngest ever player to win the Israeli League MVP award for the 2019-20 season, and was also named the Israeli League Player of the Year. With so many great successes at such a young age, it’s easy to see why the NBA Wizards team has drafted this Israeli talent. The Wizards team manager Tommy Shepard has told local media that the Wizards scouts have been following Avdija’s basketball career since he was 16. Upon being selected for the Wizards team, Avdija said during a video conference ““For me just to represent my country and to make history, that’s a blessing… I have the whole nation behind me. I hope I’m going to represent well.” Israel will be watching Deni Avdija closely on his journey with the NBA, and he is sure to inspire other young Israeli basketball players to work hard and aim for the kind of international acclaim Avdija has earned. Avdija said of young basketball players “I’m just glad they have somebody to look at and learn (from) — and just be motivated to see that us being a small country doesn’t mean that we can’t do big things.”