With 3,000 season tickets still on sale, the message at Maccabi Tel Aviv's pre-season press conference yesterday was loud and clear: This season is not going to focus on saving money. Far from it, in fact - this season is going to be the most expensive in the club's history, with a budget reported to be around $15 million.

Saying otherwise annoys Shimon Mizrahi. "Contrary to this summer's reports that the club is planning a 'money-saving season,' I would like to say that we will be putting up a very generous budget, to put it mildly," the club's infamously laconic chairman said.

Money-saving or not, Maccabi got its 2006/7 season off to a lavish start yesterday at the Tel Aviv Hilton, where 200 journalists enjoyed a buffet overlooking the city's beachfront.

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Pini Gershon, Anthony Parker and Maceo Baston will not be gracing Yad Eliahu this season, but one cannot complain about a team with a $15 million budget - except, that is, about the $3.5 million coming from television license payers' money. But that would be petty.

Judging by the media attention, Yotam Halperin was the undisputed star of the day.

The media besieged the Ra'anana kid as if he were a bona fide NBA star. On a regular day, Halperin is a player who will not return a journalist's phone call, but yesterday, the day he formally committed himself to a three-year deal with the club, he seemed to be enjoying the media attention.

Halperin made sure to label his old-new team as "family" on every possible occasion, as if we had forgotten just how hard he tried to leave home last year, and just how hard he tried not to come back this season.

Either way, Halperin is back, and his NBA dreams will have to wait another year or two.

Seated next to Halperin yesterday was Lior Eliyahu, another player who was picked in the NBA draft. "I also plan to play in the NBA in the future, let there be no doubt about it," said the lanky forward who joined Maccabi from Galil Elyon. The competition between Eliyahu and the choirboy from Ra'anana could be one of the most compelling stories at Yad Eliahu this season.

Nevan Spahija looked like one of the guests at the Hilton yesterday. Maccabi's new coach sat on his own in the corner of the stage, with no one translating the speeches by Mizrahi and co-owner David Federman into Serbo-Croatian.

"Perhaps someone would like to ask the coach a question," implored outgoing press officer Mike Karnon.

I took up the challenge. "Coach Spahija , are you asking us, the media, to give you time, in view of the fact that you are taking over a completely new roster?"

"Even if I asked you to, you wouldn't give me any," shot back the affable Croat. "At Maccabi Tel Aviv, there is no time; you have to win immediately."

Later on, tete-a-tete, he did ask for some consideration. "Look, Maccabi has undergone the biggest changes in its history this summer. It will take time to make things jell."