It is kind of embarrassing to see the poor Hebrew translation of the NBA All Star Ballot page. It is partially done and it has plenty of spelling and grammar mistakes. I would not be surprised to find similar error on the translation to other languages.
Here is my proposal to the NBA. Setup a wiki & crowdsource translations from the millions of fans they have all over teh world? Meebo did it, Facebook did it, we did it at Snap and in all cases it worked just fine. It is about time that an “offline” organization will use a similar approach and benefit from the wisdom and motivation of the crowd.
Last May I posted about the unbelievable achievement made by my long time favorite Israeli basketball club – Hapoel Holon. This is part two of the story.
Shortly after winning the Israeli 2008 championship the future of the team looked very dark. Miki Dorsman, the owner/manager/coach left the team, the budget for the 2009 season was unknown and the the entire squad moved on to other teams.
A few weeks before the current season began, the club somehow managed to resurrect itself. A tiny budget was formed, a young coach, Dani Franco, was signed, and a squad of fairly unknown players was assembled. The fans had one hope – that the team would not fall apart and drop to the second division.
Well, apparently, this club has something else that is worth a hundred times more than superstars earning millions or experienced coaches. It has a big heart. And big heart is what wins big games.
Last year, it was Malik Dixon who scored the winning shot only four seconds to the end of the Israeli championship game against Maccabi Tel Aviv, one of the most successful basketball clubs in Eurpoe. It was Holon’s first championship title, and Maccabi’s 2nd lost of the title in 34 years.
Last night, in the Israeli Basketball Cup final against the favorite Maccabi Haifa Heat, the drama was even bigger. With less than a second on the clock, and Haifa leading 68-66, the seasoned Brian Tolbert scored an amazing three-pointer with the buzzer to give Holon a 69-68 win. It was the team’s first cup title ever.
Take a look at this great video, shot by one of Holon’s fans, to experience the drama and the excitement after the victory. Holonia plays in yellow, Haifa in green.
Holon is now holding “The Double” (when a team wins both champoinship & cup titles at the same season), and if you want to make an analogy to the high tech/venture capital environment, this is like seeing a serial entrepreneur building two companies on very little seed money, and scoring two huge home runs, one year after the other. And as a fan, I am as proud and happy as a share holder could be from these liquidity events.
This is probably one of the biggest and amazing things that ever happened in the history of the game of basketball. This is a story for a Hollywood movie. This is the story of a very happy team, that tonight won for the first time in its history the title – Israel’s Basketball Champions.
And if you are curios to know why I think this is the biggest thing in the history of basketball, read further:
At the end of the previous season, Hapoel Holon qualified from the 2nd league to the premier league. After less than a year (!) they won the title.
The team is coached by an unknown and inexperienced coach – Michael (Mickey) Dorsman, a charming businessman that bought the team who has been a fan of since childhood, then took also the coach position and did amazingly well in it. Yesterday he received the ‘Best coach of the year’ title. Tonight he won the championship.
Hoolonia’s opponent in the final game was Maccabi Tel Aviv, one of the most successful clubs in European basketball. For decades Maccabi has been dominating Israeli basketball with 47 championship titles (since 1970 they lost the title only once in 1993).
At the beginning of the season, the team was penalized due to the behavior of one stupid fan who threw a stun grenade in a game and wounded a guard. The stupid guy is now in jail and the team have overcome the difficulties and ended the season in the first place in the Israeli league.
I have been a fan of this team for more than half a decade, attended many games in the good old Holon City arena, watched many more on TV and a few on my PC (thanks to RayV’s player). Today was the best day ever and it was worth the long wait.
Previous companies I was involved with include Snap.com (as VP of Products), Spark Networks (parent co of JDate as VP of Products), AOL (as Director of ICQ Mobile).
Some of the topics I am passionate about are social applications, web usability, design, mobile applications, sport and music.
Last May I 
