High Hopes
Ryan Turell has set his hopes high: to become the first Jewish player in the NBA. Currently on the roster for the G League Detroit Cruise, Ryan achieved two significant collegiate accomplishments. First, he led the nation on all college levels in scoring, with a 27.1 scoring average playing for Yeshiva University and he received the 2022 Jay Fiedler Outstanding Jewish College Athlete award. He said, “I want to be a Jewish hero.”
His journey to the G League became part of a film ‘Destination NBA,’ “Which takes turns following the seasons of several players at various stages of their basketball careers who are in the G League, which is the NBA’s official minor league.
Explaining why they included Ryan, Liam Hughes and Bryant Robinson, the co-directors explained to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “We started this film process by doing a wide talent pool of interviews with an almost impossible task of eventually narrowing our principal talent by more than half of what we started with. Ryan Turell immediately stood out because of the depth of his ‘why.’ Unearthing your why unveils the compass guiding your life’s true north. Ryan’s ‘why’ really took us by storm.” That, and the remarkable fact that that he was the only G League player to have played on a Division 3 team, two tiers down from the top Division 1 programs.
Here’s hoping Ryan achieves his aim of becoming the first Jewish player in the NBA.
(Source: Stephen Silver; Times of Israel)
