{"id":293496,"date":"2026-02-16T03:23:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T03:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/293496\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T03:23:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T03:23:11","slug":"deni-avdija-makes-history-at-nba-all-star-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/293496\/","title":{"rendered":"Deni Avdija makes history at NBA All-Star Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Israeli NBA player <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/j-spot\/article-884980\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Deni Avdija<\/a> took to the court on Sunday evening as a starter for Team World in the NBA All-Star Game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a dream come true,&#8221; Avdija said before the tournament, holding his Team World uniform with the Israeli flag and his number 8.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Avdija scored 5 points in the first game of the tournament; each game lasts only 12 minutes, unlike a standard 48-minute game. Team World played once more in Game III and lost again, eliminating them from the tournament. Avdija did not score in Game III.<\/p>\n<p>Avdija, 25 years old and standing at 6 feet 8 inches, is the first-ever Israeli to be named an NBA All-Star, and it comes on top of what the NBA All-Star website is calling his breakout season, averaging 25.5 points per game for the Portland Trail Blazers. This is Avdija&#8217;s sixth season in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/tags\/nba\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA<\/a>; he played for the Washington Wizards from 2020 to 2024 before moving to the Trail Blazers last season.<\/p>\n<p>Although he holds both Israeli and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/tags\/serbia\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Serbian<\/a> citizenship and his father played for the Yugoslav national basketball team before moving to Israel, Avdija has consistently identified as Israeli. As a teenager, he chose to play for the Israeli national team despite being eligible for the Serbian team. During the All-Star Game on Sunday, Avdija was introduced as representing Israel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Just before the game began, Los Angeles Lakers star and 22-time All Star player Lebron James was asked about Avdija and said that &#8220;I believe he is an All-Star. He&#8217;s playing exceptional basketball.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">James added that he hopes to one day visit Israel, saying, &#8220;Hopefully, someday I can make it over there. I&#8217;ve never been&#8230;but I&#8217;ve heard nothing but great things.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">&#8220;We want to tell you that you chose the right number,&#8221; the soldiers, whose faces were hidden from view, told Avdija, &#8220;and we wish you lots of good luck today in the All-Star!&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israeli NBA player Deni Avdija took to the court on Sunday evening as a starter for Team World&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4290,69925,85,46,3035,1900,47352,43,20939,34397],"class_list":["post-293496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-basketball","tag-deni-avdija","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-oregon","tag-portland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}