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Hapoel signs Wright, but still homeless
Lior Klinger
,06/30/2006 |
Hapoel Tel Aviv intend to play in Europe next season, they signed Seattle's Tanisha Wright and await the Israeli Parliament's meeting on Monday that could determine where the team will play next season.
Hapoel Tel Aviv, the Israeli champions for 05/06, signed Tanisha Wright of the Seattle Storm for the upcoming 06/07 season. Wright (G, 22, 5'11) was the 12th overall pick in the 2005 WNBA draft by Seattle, and is currently in her 2nd season with the club. Through 17 games this season, Wright came off the bench to play 16.7 minutes and average 3.5 points & 2.0 rebounds per game. During her rookie season, Wright got a chance to move to the starting lineup following Betty Lennox's injury, and she used that opportunity to score 7.8 points on 58.8% shooting over eight games.
Wright is a Penn State graduate, who was named All Big 10 Defensive player of the year in her final three seasons and made the All Big 10 1st Team as a junior and a senior. In her senior year Wright became the team's go to player and averaged a Big 10 best 19.3 points per game. She has not previously played in Europe, having spent the last WNBA off-season completing her degree at Penn State and student-teaching.
Hapoel expects to sign two European players soon, and has already signed up to play in the Europe Cup next season. Hapoel has until Wednesday to announce the arena in which they will host the European games, and says that the city hall's offer is unacceptable. Tel Aviv's city hall suggested that Hapoel use Beit Dani for their European games, play the Israeli league games in Alliance, practice twice a week at Alliance and hold the rest of the practices in a 3rd gym. Hapoel demand to have one home arena for all games & practices. Israeli Parliament member Ronit Tirosh called the urgent meeting on Monday, she demands that Hapoel is allowed to play in Nokia arena since the city ruined their home, Ushiskin, and did not provide an alternative.
Meanwhile, the ongoing saga with the payments to last year's team continues. In a meeting yesterday progress was made with some of the players, and the team said those players will receive the full payments on Monday. Hapoel also say that both Katia Leitzky & Michal Epstein are under contract for the 06/07 season, and will play for Hapoel unless an agreement is reached by both sides to release them to the new teams they signed with – Levitzky with Raanana Hereliya and Epstein with Ramla.
Katia Levitzky said in response that she sees herself playing in Raanana Hertzeliya next season. "If a team breaks the contract since March, then common sense says that agreement is no longer valid. Also, I signed a contract with the Goaz family, and they are leaving" she said. We were unable to reach Michal Epstein for her comments.
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