Hapoel Tel Aviv's long courtship of Jacob Toppin appears to be nearing a conclusion. According to a Sport 5 report published Friday evening by Noa Poplinger, negotiations between the club and the former New York Knicks and Atlanta Hawks forward have advanced markedly. Figures inside the organisation now believe the 26-year-old will be wearing red for the 2026/27 season.

The appeal is easy to understand. Toppin, who is of Jewish heritage, would not occupy one of the club's foreign-player slots under Israeli league rules — a considerable advantage for a roster builder trying to squeeze maximum talent into a limited quota.

The player, for his part, is said to have expressed a genuine willingness to move to Israel. A club source quoted in the report believes the deal will be completed in time for him to be available from the start of the coming campaign.

Toppin's pedigree is unusual for the Winner League market. Born in Brooklyn in May 2000, the 6ft 9in forward began his college career at Rhode Island before transferring to Kentucky, where he averaged 12.4 points and 6.8 rebounds as a senior.

Undrafted in 2023, he earned a two-way contract with the Knicks, splitting his time between Madison Square Garden and the Westchester Knicks of the G League. He later moved on to Atlanta, where he shuttled between the Hawks and the College Park Skyhawks.

His most recent season ended abruptly. In December 2025 he underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder, an injury that ruled him out for the remainder of the year, and the Hawks waived him on 15 December.

He has been a free agent since, which explains both his availability to a club of Hapoel's means and the element of calculated risk in the move. A fully recovered Toppin, still in his athletic prime, would be a coup; the club will want assurances on the shoulder before anything is signed.

Basketball supporters will recognise the surname. Jacob's older brother is Obi Toppin, the Indiana Pacers forward who won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 2022, and the younger Toppin shares much of the family's explosive athleticism above the rim, even if his NBA minutes were harder to come by.

There is a note of patience in the timing. The report stresses that Hapoel do not expect to complete any signings during the Nine Days, the mourning period in the Jewish calendar that concludes with Tisha B'Av on 23 July, so an announcement, if it comes, is likely to wait until the second half of the month.

The club's interest is not new: the same outlet first connected the two parties in December, and Italian outlet Sportando reported in May that contact had been running for around half a year.

For Hapoel, who finished the Winner League regular season second at 22-4 while Maccabi Tel Aviv marched to a 58th championship, the pursuit fits a clear pattern: closing the gap on their city rivals means recruiting players a tier above the league's usual import market. A forward who was on an NBA roster as recently as December would be exactly that.