You want fair? Cancel the series, cancel the final game. Let's make it like soccer. The club who will finish first is the champion, how about that?
Basketball is different from soccer. Who will watch a playoff series in soccer, a sport with so few highlights (goals)? The season would be very long. Too long for other competitions, like the World Cup. Our sport has a different tradition. Nothing ends with regular season's standings. We have it from America.
My problem is not that the final will be in Yad Eliyahu, my problem is that it shouldn't beone game. In one game we won NBA teams. Does it means that we are better? In one game, Olympiacos won the Euroleague vs. clubs that most probably wouldn't lose to OLY in a series and that's fin when it happenes in a TOURNAMENT system, not in a league system.
1. Games vs. NBA teams were simply friendly games.
2. The EL is not a Cup competition but a mix between league play and Final Four rules.
Last year, Oly was superbly lucky. This year, they've destroyed their opponents, when it mattered most. They werent the best team for me but they are the champions. They got their act together, when it mattered most. That way, any team can get a chance and it's good that way. CSKA would probably not lose a series in Europe. Perennial champions with the biggest budget with a huge gap to #2. Is it because they are working better? No, it is because they get shady money they would never get in a free market situation in truly free countries. They are just throwing money at people, not doing a decent scouting, not really having a great youth program. Since they show the trend in Russia not to wait but try to "buy" titles, basketball keeps to be underdeveloped in Russia. This huge country has had a league with 10-12 teams, more than half of them being located around the capital city. Germany has 18 teams with more willing to participate, for example. Since people in Russia see the reality, those teams cannot generate any acceptable spectators' numbers. Forgotten are times, when BasketHall in Kazan or the arena in Perm were full and loud.
You play league games during the season in order to achieve the highest place, not to finish 8th with 15 losses more then the 1st place team so that you can win theam in one game (it does happen, you know, for any team in the world) and then to be crowned as champion if though you know deep inside that you aren't the best team.
In order to be the champion, you do not have to have the most wins. You have to win, when it matters most. You are also not speculating to be #8. Besides, #1 plays #8 in a best-of-five series. If you become a champ then, then you are really the best team. If you win in a single final game, then you were also best when it mattered most. Regular season crap, where you can try out things, let the youth play, let your veterans rest, doesn't matter then.
The series is the way to decide champions in the domestic leagues at least for the past 30-40 years (I'm not talking about Cup tournaments) and if it's good for the rest of the world, Israel shouldn't be different.
It's good for countries, where the market and the reality allow several strong clubs. Not one that is towering above anyone else. Then it becomes boring, as it is predictable. If Maccabi wouldn't have succeeded in Europe, Israeli basketball would be dead.
As I said, I want other strong clubs and an Israeli domestic league that will be good, but ont on Maccabi's expense and not because of some stupid rules and this, my friend, is a huge stupid rule.
The rule is very debatable, no question. I also want other clubs to be stronger than they are. Regardless of who wins the championship at the end. It shouldn'T happen at the expense of Maccabi, like inventing a salary cap or sth. like that. Right now, the system doesn'T work at the expense of Maccabi. Maccabi is entitled to do what it wants. It will participate in the EL anyway. It has no budget restrictions. It gets all the TV money. These rules simply give other teams a decent chance.
You want to be the champion? work hard for it. and yes, Israel is the only country that decide league champion in a final four system and it's more absurd when they play series until the final (or you play playoffs series or not). By the way, I read today that the management will consider to return to series in the final for next year. Even they understood that this "championship" of Haifa is ridiculous.
The championship for Haifa is great. They will play Eurocup next season. Another Israeli representative in Europe. Maybe, they can keep their squad together and get even stronger. Who knows.
Working hard is not enough, if the financial means are not there and you need to gather a lot and for a long period of time, if you want to play for the crown. It seems impossible for now. Jerusalem has to more than triple its budget, other teams have to bring up 8-10 times as much. The market in Israel simply doesn't allow it and first and foremost so quickly. Too invest millions upon millions and to lose out for the first 5-10 years is nothing smart businessmen would do. Sport is very short lived.
If the league returns to a finals series, fine with me. It will give other teams less chances but who knows. Maybe, another Galil will appear on the horizon in 15 years and then lose all of its core players to the teams they have beaten because it can give them a) more money and b) the Euroleague, which the Israeli champion cannot offer because Maccabi Tel-Aviv is there forever.
And sports is nothing without fair competition. So if a team is better then the others (you do realize that you cannot have a league with equal teams) it's not their problem so the league will start to invent idiot rules in order to create an equality.
So, if Maccabi gets an equal chance (of course, it has more chances to win than its opponent) as other teams, it is not fair? If a league has no competition, it loses out on public interest. Since Maccabi doesn't gather the best Israeli players like it used to do in the past, relying on foreigner instead (just as other teams do), this doesn't add more public interest, too. As those foreigners are no marquee names anymore and Maccabi doesn't really compete for the EL title, the whole thing loses on publicity and thus on money and thus on quality.
Hey, what is this whining all about? Maccabi is the strongest team? Go out and show it on the floor. You need a series? Basketball is not soccer, where you can win on a lucky goal, while playing eleven man defense only. You score a lot of points and have a lot of chances to win. Usually, the better team prevails. And if this team is by far the best one, its chances are close to 100%, which is reflected in Maccabi's overall record in Israel. So, you really want Maccabi's chances to be 99% instead of 95%? Yeah, that shows a lot of fearlessness.
Look, I'm not one of those guys who blame Maccabi for everything, saying they do not represent Israeli basketball, they are this, they are that... I'm a die-hard Maccabi supporter on international stage. But I'm supporting any team that is play vs. Maccabi domestically because I go with underdogs. That's normal. It's nothing special to support a 15 mio budget team vs. a 1 mio budget team. A win is almost guaranteed. I want other teams to have a chance for success because otherwise I see no progress of basketball in Israel. If you invest 2.5 mio and do not stand a chance, you know that you won't stand a chance with 5 mio, too because the gap is too bug. Plus, you will never get your money back. If you know, you have a chance to win, establish a winning tradition, you might invest in an arena, in European Cups' participation, in players, in youth schools.
Are you serious, man? Why the hell do I need to care regarding other clubs? I want a strong Israeli league, I want Maccabi in the Israeli league - not in any price. Do you imagine a final game in football, for example, between the first and the second, when the difference is 13 points? Is it seem fair to you, that Maccabi won 5 times this season and the only lost was a championship game? ridiculous is a gentle word for this system. The French league is not relevant, one league that plays like this from 200 leagues doesn't make it better for Israel, plus the French already moved back to series. If the other teams don't want/have to build stronger teams, it's not Maccabi's problem, who started from zero 50 years ago and now they considered as one of the bes clubs in Europe. Like I said, no shortcuts in life. You want to succee? invest.