By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
What Joe Ingles couldn’t do as a member of Barcelona, he did as the underdog with Maccabi Tel Aviv. “It’s amazing, it’s the best time of my life”, he said to Eurohoops as a fan of Maccabi was trying to persuade him in giving him his championship t-shirt. “Anything man, I am just happy”, he said.
However Ingles kept the shirt and remembered what was like the first time he landed in Tel Aviv, leaving a top contender like Barcelona: “I said in my first interview when I landed in Tel Aviv that I came here in order to win the Euroleague. I believed in the team we had, we could do it. We are a bunch of fighters, we like enjoyed being the underdogs and we were free to do what we do”.
And the trend of underdogs continues in Euroleague, after the two back to back titles of Olympiacos. As Ingles said: “Obviously teams have different budgets. However, at the end of the day there are just five guys on the court. You may have a 10 million contract or a 100.000 contract, but it’s one on one, five versus five. You got to get winners in your team and we are a team of winners”.
After that, don’t be surprised if you see the Australian forward trying to make the jump to the NBA. According to Eurohoops sources, Utah Jazz, Miami Heat and Atlanta Hawks are interesting in his case. Ingles didn’t deny that the interest is mutual: “It’s always the goal to play there, in the best league in the world. But now I have to finish off this year, we still have the Israeli league to take care, I will then go home for a while, sit on my bench and think. Is not on my mind right now”.