Amos Frishman has had enough of being called corrupt. The chairman of the Israel Basketball Association used an interview with ONE to fire back at Hapoel Tel Aviv owner Ofer Yanay, telling him that if he genuinely believes the association is corrupt, the answer is simple: go to the police, not the airwaves.
"You can't just keep saying, over and over, that we're corrupt," Frishman said. "It bothered me because Ofer keeps attacking the basketball association without end. If the association really is corrupt, he should go to the police and let them look into it properly."
The clash traces back to the association's naturalized-player system, which determines which foreign-born player can be fast-tracked for Israeli citizenship and eligibility for the national team. Frishman said the board asked him to set up a committee to establish the criteria, insisting the group only discussed general principles rather than specific candidates.
Yanay tells a more pointed version of events. In a companion interview with ONE, the Hapoel Tel Aviv owner said Frishman himself had approached him months earlier about naturalizing American-born center Dan Oturu as the club's next candidate, and that he sank roughly two million dollars into meeting the league's requirements, including signing Oturu to a contract without a buyout clause.
According to Yanay, the process stalled once rival clubs realized Oturu would be the one to benefit. He says pressure then built to rewrite the rules so the naturalization advantage would be reserved for what he called elite clubs, not Hapoel Tel Aviv.
Asked directly about Oturu, Frishman was more measured than dismissive. "He's a great player," he said, "but there's still a way to go before he becomes the national team's next naturalized player." It was a notable hedge from the man who oversees the committee deciding exactly that question.
The interview ranged well beyond the naturalization fight. Frishman said the association is working on a new arrangement to help players secure accommodations for army service up to age 30, with eligibility to be confirmed through medical checks carried out by the national team's own doctor.
He also addressed the situation of Deni Avdija, the Portland Trail Blazers forward and Israel's highest-profile NBA export, saying a back injury has complicated insurance arrangements around his national-team availability. "Only Portland can decide whether he comes," Frishman said, a reminder that Avdija's club holds the final word regardless of what Tel Aviv wants.
On the administrative side, Frishman confirmed the league's management has signed a one-year extension to run the competition, a routine item that nonetheless underlines how much organizational business is riding on an association currently fending off public accusations of corruption from one of its most prominent club owners.
Frishman closed by returning to his central point: that the sniping needs to either be substantiated through proper channels or dropped. "The most important thing," he said, "is that the basketball association stays clean." Whether that settles anything with Yanay remains to be seen — the two have clashed publicly before, and this dispute, tied directly to who gets the naturalization slot, is unlikely to be the last word.
