When Omri Casspi was introduced at Madison Square Garden on a snowy Tuesday evening in February, a large section of the New York crowd did something unthinkable by local standards: It rose to its feet and cheered for an opposing player. With Israeli flags unfurled and waving, hundreds of New York Knicks faithful chanted “Omri” across the arena, surprising even themselves with their volume.
Omri Casspi, the rookie small forward for the Sacramento Kings, threw out a gesture of recognition from the floor. As the first Israeli player in the NBA, he would now compete in its most hallowed venue, Madison Square Garden, the veritable Kotel of basketball arenas.
“To play in front of 20,000 people... and in front of so many Jewish people, more than any city in Israel, it’s a great feeling,” Casspi said before the game. Casspi’s presence at the Garden, however, was not just a symbolic gesture for Jewish fans. As a first-round draft pick, expectations were high.
“We didn’t come to see him dress,” one fan said. “We came to see him play.”
Casspi impressed early, hitting four of his first five shots, including a slashing dunk. By halftime, Casspi led all players on either team with 16 points.
In preparation for Casspi’s arrival, the evening was billed as Jewish Heritage Night. To the delight of many in the crowd and the confusion of many more, a Jewish a cappella group sang “Hatikvah” before performing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Madison Square Garden even offered a ticket package that allowed fans to meet Casspi before the game. While the teams warmed up on the court behind him, Casspi took questions from fans on topics ranging from his three-point shooting to his adjustment to life in America. Boys clad in yarmulkes and basketball sneakers begged Casspi repeatedly to dunk the ball for them. Handwritten signs, posters, and Israeli flags all awaited his autograph. A young girl presented him with a tub of Israeli hummus and a bag of pita while her father related a recent news story about how Casspi had not been able to find good hummus in the United States.
Moments like these have become standard for Casspi over the course of his first NBA season. Casspi, for his part, embraces the role of ambassador. Though he completed the compulsory three years of army service, he now views his high-profile assignment in the NBA as an additional form of service to his country. Beyond the requisite workload of a pro player, Casspi sees each city where the team travels as a new platform to act as emissary. He meets with representatives from local Jewish communities and grants uncommon access to his fans before and after games.
Athletes, for better or worse, have always been held up to heroic standards. Both their triumphs and misdeeds are diffused across a spectrum, a space indifferent to borders or language. At the same time, sports are also local and Casspi, who represents a small place, is aware of his meaning. One young fan, after receiving an autograph from Casspi, was asked if he counted Casspi among the Jewish heroes.
“Number 18, baby!” the boy cawed, referring to Casspi’s apropos jersey number. “That says it all!”
A player like Tyreke Evans, one of Casspi’s teammates and the winner of this year’s coveted Rookie of the Year Award, may reflect the hopes that Jewish fans reserve for Casspi. Yet with his first NBA season in the books, Casspi’s first-year stats suggest that he will be neither a star nor a benchwarmer. In representing Israel, a country that aspires to nothing more than normalcy, a contributor such as Casspi makes a realistic hero.
That fact that Casspi is a Jew, an Israeli, and a viable NBA player all at once isn’t really astonishing enough to fully justify the Omri phenomenon: hundreds of fans in New York willing to buy tickets for a basketball game between two struggling teams—despite a February storm and an economic recession. But as fans at the Garden watched Casspi collect the game’s final rebound and clutch the ball victoriously until the buzzer sounded, he reminded some of a more elusive joy: the joy of belonging.
Adam Chandler is a writer and editor who lives in Brooklyn, NY. Chandler was a writer-in-residence at the Cat’Art Centre in Sainte Columbe sur l’Hers in France and received an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College in December 2009.
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